A history of Egypt from the end of the Neolithic period to the death of Cleopatra VII, B.C. 30

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Park St. Church, Boston]

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., beg to
announce that they have still in stock a limited number of the
larger edition of the hieroglyphic text and translation of the
Theban Recension of the Book of the Dead, with the hiero-
glyphic vocabulary by Dr. Wallis Budge, which appeared in
three volumes under the title " Chapter of Coming Forth
by Day," late in 1897.

Price for the Entire Work, £2 10s.

Volume I. contains all the known Chapters of the Theban
Recension of the Book of the Dead, printed in hieroglyphic
type (pp. 1 — 517), and a description of the papyri in the British
Museum from which they have been edited, and a list of
Chapters, etc. (pp. i. — xl.). This edition is the most complete
which has hitherto been published.

Volume II. contains a full vocabulary (pp. 1 — 386) to all the
hieroglyphic texts of the Chapters of the Theban Recension of
the Book of the Dead and to the supplementary Chapters from
the Sa'ite Recension which are given therewith in Volume I.
The volume contains about 35,000 references.

Volume.III. contains : —

Preface and list of Chapters (i.-xxxvi.).

1. Introduction (pp. xxxvii.-cciv.) : —
Chap. I.— The History of the Book of the Dead. This
Chapter is accompanied by eighteen plates which illus-
trate the palaeography of the various Recensions of the
Book of the Dead from the Vth Dynasty to the Roman
Period.

VOL. II. A

Chap. II. — Osiris and the Resurrection.
„ III. — The Judgment of the Dead.
„ IV. — The Elysian Fields or Heaven. With extracts

from the Pyramid Texts.
„ V.— The Magic of the Book of the Dead.

„ VI. — The Object and Contents of the Book of the Dead.
„ VII. — The Book of the Dead of Nesi-Khonsu, about

B.C. 1000 (English translation).
„ VIII. — The Book of Breathings (English translation).
„ IX. — The Papyrus of Takhert-puru-abt (English

translation).

2. English Translation of the Book of the Dead
(pp. 1 — 354). The volume also contains three scenes from the
famous Papyrus of Ani representing the Judgment Scene, the
Funeral Procession, and the Elysian Fields, which have been
reproduced in full colours by Mr. W. Griggs, the eminent
photo-lithographer.

3&ooks on EQppt anfc Gfoalfcaea

A HISTORY OF EGYPT

From the End of the Neolithic Period to
the Death of Cleopatra VII. B.C. 30

Vol. II.

EGYPT UNDER THE
GREAT PYRAMID BUILDERS

1Booh$ on Eg^pt an& Cbal&aea

UNDER

THE GREAT PYRAMID BUILDERS

"

BY

E. A.^WALLIS BUDGE, M.A., Litt.D., D.Lit.

KEEPER OF THE EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

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NEW YORK

HENRY FROWDE

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

AMERICAN BRANCH

1902

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PREFACE

In the pages of this Volume the history of Egypt has
been continued from the end of the Illrd Dynasty to
the close of the reign of Seankh-ka-Ka, who was
famous for the despatch of an expedition to Punt, and
was the last king of the Xlth Dynasty. The opening
chapter is devoted to a summary in which the general
condition of the country, and the state of civilization
of the people, and the progress of the Egyptians
during the Archaic Period are briefly described. The
facts related in it illustrate the manner in which the
civilization of the dynastic Egyptians developed out
of the primitive culture of the indigenous predynastic
peoples of Egypt, after it had been modified and
improved by the superior intelligence of a race of men,
presumably of Asiatic origin, who invaded and con-
quered Egypt. The chapters which follow deal with
the period of the Great Pyramid Builders, one of the
most fascinating epochs of Egyptian history. In it we
see the broad-headed, dominant race in Egypt at their
best, and it has been truly said that it was the kings of

Vlll PREFACE

the IVth Dynasty, with their architects, and practical
mechanics, and artists, and sculptors, and scribes, who
made the great reputation which the Egyptians have
enjoyed ever since throughout the world. It may be
argued that the Pyramids are useless monuments of
misdirected energy, and of misapplied ability, to say
nothing of the vanity of the kings who made them —
a vanity which some think was as colossal in its way
as the actual buildings ; but it is the fact that the
master minds which planned and the mechanical skill
which built them remained unsurpassed, and even
unequalled, in all the subsequent history of Egypt.
Cheops and his immediate successors certainly deserve
praise for the good sense which they displayed in
giving their great architects and clerks of works a
free hand in their mighty undertakings ; and it must
never be forgotten that the sculptures and bas-reliefs
executed during their reigns are as wonderful for their
delicacy and beauty as the Pyramids are for their size
and solidity. That the scribes, and artists, and
sculptors of the Saite Period made them the models
from which they worked is not to be wondered at, and
it borders on the marvellous that the best and greatest
period of Egyptian art and sculpture must be assigned
to the time of the IVth Dynasty, or about B.C. 3500.
In the following pages no mention is made of the
various ingenious theories which have gathered round
the Great Pyramid, and which would assign to that
vast sepulchral monument hidden purposes and mean-

PREFACE IX

ings, for it is now admitted by all competent authorities
that it was built for a tomb and not to illustrate
any esoteric doctrines connected with the Hebrew
Patriarchs and others.

In discussing the Xlth Dynasty, a brief narrative
of the Antef kings has been included, because the late
Dr. Brugsch and Prof. Wiedemann and other Egypt-
ologists have included them among the rulers of that
Dynasty, and the general reader will expect to find
them there ; but it is probable, as the forms of some of
the prenomens of the Antefs, and the peculiar shape of
their coffins indicate, that they reigned at a later
period, i.e., after the XHIth and before the XVIIth
Dynasty. The extracts from the History of Herodotus,
given in English, are taken from the quaint and
charming old rendering of the first two Books by
"B. E.," which was published in 1584. 1

E. A. Wallis Budge.

1 THE Famous History of ] HERODOTUS | Conteynwg the
Discourse | of dyuers Countreys, the succession | of theyr Kyngs :
the actes and exploytes | atchieued by them : the Lavves and j cus-
tomes of euery nation: with the | true Description and Anti- | quitie
of the time. | Deuided into nine Bookes, entituled with J the
names of the nine Muses. | At London [ Printed by Thomas
Marshe : 1584.

CONTENTS

Chapter I. — Summary of the Archaic Period. Pre-

DYNASTIC AND DYNASTIC INHABITANTS OP EGYPT COM-
PARED. Their Dwellings, Methods of Burials,
Tombs, etc. Art of Writing and Inscriptions,
Names of Te, Ee, and Ka. Development of
Hieroglyphics. Egyptian Language and its
Affinities. Egyptian Eeligion of Indigenous
Origin. Antiquity of Belief in a Future Life.
Osiris. Oldest Figure of a Goddess. Names of
Goddesses in use in the Archaic Period. Neith,
Ptah-Seker-Asar, Horus, Apis, Mnevis, etc.
Great Antiquity of parts of the Booh of the Dead.
Semti, the Editor of parts of it. The Followers
of Horus. Early Statues of Besh. Class of
Green Slate Objects of Unknown Use. Stele
of Vultures Compared. Evidence of Jar-seal -
ings. Early Titles of Officials. The Set and
Horus Names of the King. Pharaoh. The
Serekh or "Cognizance." The Title "Son of
the Sun." The Queen or Eoyal Mother.
Privileges of Women

Chapter II. — Fourth Dynasty. Seneferu. His Forts
and Pyramid. Queen Merti-tef-s. Khufu or
Cheops and his Pyramid. Meaning of the
Word "Pyramid." Descriptions of the Great
Pyramid by Herodotus, Diodorus, Pliny, Strabo,

Xll CONTENTS

PAGE

Abu'l-Fida. Notices by Christian Writers.
Construction of Great Pyramid. Khufu's Son,
Heru-tata-f. Ea-tet-f or Eatoises. Kha-f-Ea
or Chephren and his Pyramid. Temple of the
Sphinx. The Sphinx. Mention of, by Pliny and
'Abd al-Latif. Mycerinus and his Pyramid.
His Coffin and Sarcophagus. Shepses-ka-f . 21

Chapter III. — Fifth Dynasty. Userkaf and his
Pyramid. Sahu-Ea and his Pyramid. Eut-Tetet,
the Wife of Ea-user and her Three Sons.
Ea-en-user and his Works at Sinai. The
Mastaba of Thi. Men-kau-Heru and his Works
at Sinai. Assa and the Wadi Hammamat. He

SENDS TO THE IjAND OF THE GHOSTS FOR A PYGMY.

Ptah-hetep, the Author of the Precepts. Unas.
His Pyramid, inscribed with Important Eeligious
Texts. Unas Kills and Eats the Gods . . 67

Chapter IV. — Sixth Dynasty. Teta and his Pyramid.
Pepi I. The Official Una and his Expedition
to the South. Clears the old Canal at
Elephantine. Mer-en-Ea. His Pyramid and
Mummy. The Official Her-khuf. Pepi II.
Mission of Her-khuf to the Pygmy Land.
Nttocris. Greek Legends of Ehodopis-Nitocris.
Decay of Power of the Government of Memphis
at the End of the VIth Dynasty ... 89

Chapter V.— Summary of the IVth, Vth and VIth
Dynasties. Limits of Egyptian Eule. Naram-
Sin and the Babylonians. Makan. The Menti,
the Anu (Troglodytes), the Sati, the Heru-Sha,
the petchti-shu, the thehennu, the llbu,
(Libyans), the Neiiesu (Nubians). Expeditions
of Her-khuf. Punt. Use of Metals. Bronze
Age. Iron. The Great Pyramid and the
Mastabas. The Shekh al-Balad. Egyptian
Houses. Early Temples. Ptah-hetep the

CONTENTS Xlll

PAGE

Moralist, and Kaqemna. Eoyal Titles. Priests
of the Pyramids. Worship of Kings. Tombs
and Monuments of the Early Empire. Priests
of Heliopolis. Position of "Women. The
Peasant 128

Chapter VI. — VIIth to XIth Dynasties. Chrono-
logical Difficulties. Dynasties from Hera-
kleopolis. Khati I., Khati II., Khian . . 161

Chapter VII. — The XIth Dynasty. Growth of
Thebes, the city of Amen. Karnak. Princes
of Thebes Conquer those of Siut. The Antef
Kings. Edict of Antef V. at Coptos. The
"^Lament of the Harper. The Menthu-hetep
Kings. Amen-em-hat, the Mining Engineer.
Pyramid of Menthu-hetep III. Merti-Sen, the
Sculptor. Hennu's Expedition to Punt in the
Eeign of Seankh-ka-Ea 177

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

1. The goddess Ta-urt. Archaic Period. (British

Museum) ......... 5

2. Green slate object of unknown use, with reliefs.

(British Museum) 10

3. Portion of a green slate object of unknown

use, with reliefs. (British Museum) . . .13

4. Drawings from a fragment of a similar object . 15

5. Ancient form of the Serekh 19

6. EOCK-RELIEF OF SENEFERU AT WaDI MAGHARA . . 22

7. The Step Pyramid at Medum 25

8. EOCK-RELIEF OF KHUFU, OR CHEOPS, AT WaDI

Maghara 29

9. EOCK-RELIEF OF KHUFU, OR CHEOPS, AT WaDI

Maghara 30

10. View of the Great Pyramid and Sphinx . . 31

11. Diagram showing the passages in the Great

Pyramid 42

12. Portrait statue of Khufu, King of Egypt . . 44

13. Portrait statue of KhAf-Ra, or Chephren . . 48

14. Portrait of Men-kau-Ra, or Mycerinus . . 53

15. Cover of wooden coffin of Mycerinus. (British

Museum) 60

16. Sarcophagus of Mycerinus 61

17. Portrait statue of Usr-en-Ra, King of Egypt . 73

18. Relief of Men-kau-Heru, King of Egypt . . 76

19. Tomb of Unas — Section 82

20. Tomb of Unas— Plan 82

XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

21. Bull weight inscribed with the name and titles

of Teta, King of Egypt. (British Museum) . 90

22. Vase of Pepi I. (British Museum) .... 96

23. Inscription of Pepi I. (British Museum) . . 98

24. Vase of Pepi I. (British Museum) .... 104

25. Vase of Mer-en-Ra, King of Egypt. (British

Museum) Ill

26. Vase of Pepi II., King of Egypt. (British Museum) 116

27. Portrait statue of an official, IVth Dynasty.

(British Museum) 135

28. Portrait statue of Ka-tep and his wife Hetepet-

hers. (British Museum) 137

29. The Great Pyramid with mastaba tombs . .139

30. Statue of the "Shekh al-Balad" .... 141

31. Statue of An-kheft-ka, IVth Dynasty. (British

Museum) 142

32. Terra-cotta model of Egyptian house. (British

Museum) 143

33. Terra-cotta model of Egyptian house, with steps

leading to the roof. (British Museum) . .145

34. Terra-cotta model of Egyptian house, with steps

leading to roof. (British Museum) . . .147

35. Hard stone portrait statue of the official Hapi.

(British Museum) 151

36. Hard stone Portrait statue of the Official

Anpu. (British Museum) 153

37. Hard stone portrait statues of An-senf and

Mersebes. (British Museum) .... 155

38. Hard stone portrait of an official. (British

Museum) 157

39. Alabaster vase. (British Museum) .... 159

40. Head of Se-user-en-Ra Khian, King of Egypt.

(British Museum) 174

EGYPT

UNDER THE

GREAT PYRAMID BUILDERS,

CHAPTER I.

ARCHAIC PERIOD. — SUMMARY.

,With the ending of the Illrd Dynasty we close our
chapter on the archaic period of Egyptian civilization.
The remains of the first three dynasties, which are now
considerable, show that the civilization of this period,
while marking the beginnings of Egyptian culture, as
contrasted with that of the "New Eace," exhibits
many interesting points of difference from the fully
developed civilization of the Nile Valley, which may be
said really to have begun with the rule of the kings of
the IVth Dynasty. The " New Race," or indigenous
inhabitants of the Nile Valley, lived in mud huts, or in
booths made of wattles and mud ; but the Egyptians
of the 1st Dynasty lived in wooden and brick-built
houses, which had openings both for doors and
windows, and which were ornamented in front with
cornices and decorative wood- work. The "New Race"

VOL. II. B

2 ARCHAIC PERIOD — SUMMARY

buried their dead in the beds of streams, on the banks
of the Nile, and in holes scooped out on the edge of the
desert ; but the Egyptians of the 1st Dynasty laid
their dead in tombs which had substantial brick walls
and wooden roofs supported by pillars, and which were
usually floored with wood, but sometimes with stone as
in the case of the tomb of Semti, which was paved
with slabs of red granite. The use of stone in tomb
building increased steadily, and already in the Illrd
Dynasty we find that the Egyptians were able to
build the stone pyramid of Sakkara, which has been
described above.

The Egyptians of the first three dynasties followed
the custom of their indigenous predecessors and,
buried their dead in a contracted position, but
there seems to be no evidence to prove that they
retained generally the custom of systematically muti-
lating the body before burial. Towards the end of
the archaic period of Egyptian history dead bodies were
sometimes buried at full length and lying on their
backs, and gradually this method of arranging the
dead body became universal. The custom of making
offerings to the dead, which was widespread among
the peoples of the " New Eace," was certainly adopted
by the early dynastic Egyptians, for, in addition to the
pottery and small articles that have been found in
graves of the primitive people, the dynastic Egyptians
buried with their dead amulets of many kinds, and
ivory figures, plaques, etc., which display very consider-

EARLY INSCRIPTIONS 3

able skill in working the material employed. The graves
of the "New Eace " neither contain inscriptions nor
display any knowledge of the art of writing, but it is
certain that before the 1st Dynasty the isolated pictures
of boats, birds, animals, standards, etc., which are
characteristic of the primitive period, had been
elaborated and combined into a system of expressing
connected ideas by means of picture writing. The
names of the dead were therefore first commemorated
at the time when the Nile Valley was still divided into
two kingdoms, i.e., the South and the North, for the
earliest Egyptian inscriptions known to us consist of
the names of the predynastic kings of the south called
Te, and Ke, and Ka. And it is due to the preservation
of the roughly hewn and roughly inscribed funereal
stelae of the earliest Egyptian kings, and their nobles,
and officials, that we owe a great part of our knowledge
of the social conditions under which the Egyptians lived
during the archaic period of their history.

The inscriptions of the 1st Dynasty contain a large
number of hieroglyphic signs, the greater number of
which are identical with the hieroglyphics of the later
periods but are more archaic in form ; many of them
are, of course, crude pictures of objects, but some, even
in that early period, exhibit signs of conventional treat-
ment. Inscriptions written with such unconvention-
alized pictorial hieroglyphics are of the utmost value
for the identification of the objects which are depicted
in a purely conventional manner in the later texts,

4 ARCHAIC PERIOD — SUMMARY

when the correct forms of the original objects which
they represented had become forgotten. A comparison
also of the archaic inscriptions with the texts of a
later date shows that many of the early picture
characters became obsolete as far back as the period of
the IVth Dynasty ; for this reason it is extremely
difficult to read with certainty the inscriptions of the
1st Dynasty. The inscriptions of the period which we
possess are very short, and, because they consist chiefly
of names and titles, they are rarely long enough to
form grammatical sentences ; the longest inscription
consists of but a few words, such as " great heads (i.e.,

chiefs) come tomb; he gives A(?).' M This being

so, it is impossible either to draw any final conclusion
as to the grammatical peculiarities of the Egyptian
language at this early period, or to make any definite
statement as to the group of languages with which it
was cognate; in the 1st Dynasty its construction seems
to have been even more simple than in the time of the
IYth Dynasty, and as far as can be seen now its
relationship to any Semitic dialect becomes in no way
more apparent. It is certain that many of the funda-
mentals of the Egyptian language, and even of the
writing, were of indigenous and not Asiatic origin, and
a very large portion of the vocabulary in use in the
early dynasties consisted of words of an indigenous

origin.

1 See Royal Tombs, plate 16, No. 20.

AFRICAN ORIGIN OF RELIGION

Similarly, the fundamentals of the Egyptian religion
are also of indigenous and not Asiatic origin,
and it seems as if the standards of the gods, and
perhaps of the sacred
animals, were objects
of veneration to the
peoples of the " New
Kace " before the advent
of their conquerors from
the East. It is clear
that the "New Eace "
believed in a life bevond
the grave, for they laid
offerings of food, etc., in
the graves of their dead,
and unless they had such
a belief they would never
have made provision for
their wants in a future
life. This and other
primitive beliefs were
retained by the early
dynastic Egyptians, who,
however, added thereto
religious ideas of a
different character, which were due partly to the new-
comers and partly to natural development. Thus, with
the 1st Dynasty we enter the iconic age of Egyptian
religion, and it seems as if the god Osiris was already

The goddess Ta-urb.
British Museum, No. 35,700.

D ARCHAIC PERIOD — SUMMARY

fashioned in mncli the same form as that in which he
appears even in the latest times. The oldest figure of
a deity which we possess is that of the hippopotamus
goddess Ta-urt, which is represented on p. 5 ; this image,
which is now in the British Museum, must belong to the
archaic period of Egyptian art, for it is made of the
peculiar red breccia which is characteristic of that
period. Its artistic treatment points to the same age,
and we are probably right in assigning it to the time of
the 1st and Ilnd Dynasties. The remarkable green
slate object bearing the name of Nar-Mer (see Vol. I.,
pp. 185-187) by its reliefs proves that the cow-goddess
Hathor was at that remote time a favourite object of
veneration, and the British Museum possesses a flint,
roughly worked in the shape of her head (Vol. I., p. 84,
No. 32,124), which must be considerably older than the
reign of Nar-Mer. Many other deities must have been
known in the archaic period, and the name Mer-Nit
shows us that the warrior-goddess, whose emblem was
the shield with two arrows crossed upon it, X , was
already worshipped, and traces of the worship of Seker
appear in the form of the hieroglyphic of the Hennu
Boat, and of the bandy-legged figure, which in later days
became the type of the triune god of the Resurrection,
Ptah-Seker-Asar. Horus, the sky-god, was certainly
the supreme god at this period, but as yet no image of
him in human hawk-headed form has been found ; he
always appears in the form of a hawk, and, indeed, it
is worthy of note that in the archaic period the custom

BOOK OF THE DEAD IN SEMTl's REIGN 7

of representing theriomorphic deities with human
bodies had not yet grown up. At this period a con-
siderable development in the religious ideas of the
Egyptians seems to have taken place ; incidentally an
important proof of this is supplied by Manetho, who
indicates that new institutions in connection with the
worship of the bulls Apis and Mnevis, and of the ram
of Mendes, were established by Ka-kau, a king of the
Ilnd Dynasty. According to traditions which are
preserved in the rubrics of some of its chapters, the
Book of the Dead, in some form or other, must already
have been in existence in the 1st Dynasty. Thus in
the coffin of Menthu-hetep, a queen of the Xlth
Dynasty, we have two copies of the LXIVth Chapter ;
in the rubric to the first the name of the king during
whose reign the chapter is said to have been " found "
is given as Menthu-hetep, which is, of course, a mis-
take * for Men-kau-Ra or Mycerinus, the fourth king
of the IV th Dynasty, but in the rubric to the second
the king's name is given as Semti or Hesepti. Thus
it is clear that in the period of the Xlth Dynasty it
was believed that the chapter might alternatively be
as old as the time of the 1st Dynasty. Again, in the
Papyrus of Nu, a document which dates from the
period of the first half of the XVIIIth Dynasty, we
also have two copies of the LXIVth Chapter, and the
shorter version is attributed to the time of Semti, or
Hesepti, and the longer to that of Men-kau-Ra. When

1 See Goodwin, Aegyptisclie Zeitschrift, 1886, p. 54.

8 THE HENNU BOAT OF THE GOD SEKER

we remember that on the plaque of Semti (see Vol. L,
p. 195) we find depicted a figure of this king dancing
before a god, who is probably Osiris, and see thereon a
figure of the Hennu Boat of the god Seker, and also
consider that Semti's tomb was one of the finest of
those of the early dynastic kings found at Abydos, it is
certain that this king inaugurated some ceremonies in
connection with the burial of the dead, or developed
old ones to such an extent that his successors saw fit
to associate certain chapters of the Booh of the Bead
with his name. And it is more than probable that he
took some part personally in the " editing " or revision
of the chapters which are connected with his name ;
for had the scribes of a later period wished merely to
ascribe great antiquity to the LXIVth Chapter, they
could have done so more effectually by mentioning in
connection with it the name of Mena or Menes, or the
" Followers of Horus/' than by referring it to the time
of a king who was not the founder of the rule of the
dynastic kings of Egypt. In any case Semti must
have been a learned man, for he is also mentioned in a
medical papyrus (see p. 199), and both he and Tcheser
seem to have contributed largely to the medical know-
ledge of the period.

We have already referred to the tombs of the archaic
period, and we have seen that the art of building-
structures in brick and stone had so far improved by
the middle of the Illrd Dynasty that Tcheser found
himself possessed of such mechanical means and arclii-

THE STEP PYRAMID OF TCHESER g

tectural knowledge as were necessary to enable him to
build the oldest of the pyramids, i.e., the Step Pyramid
at Sakkara; the height of perfection to which the arts
of the potters and of the workers in glaze had attained is
shown by the beautiful blue glazed faience tiles which
were used to line the interior of this edifice. 1 The art
of making statues of any size in the round seems to date
from the time of Besh, the first king of the Ilnd Dynasty,
but the art of sculpturing in relief was known at a much
earlier period, and indeed it seems to have been employed
as far back as the time of the predecessors of Menes, to
whose period many of the small figures in the round
must also date. To this period, i.e., to the time of the
" Followers of Horus," or the half-civilized predynastic
rulers of Upper Egypt, must be assigned the two most
archaic of the green slate objects already referred to in
Vol. I., p. 184, the designs on which are here reproduced. 2
A mere glance at these two objects is sufficient to convince
the archaeologist that they are the most ancient of their
class, and that they are, in point of date, considerably
anterior to the sculptured reliefs of the kings Aha and
Nar-mer. The larger of them is incomplete, and the
small portion missing has never been found ; the re-
mainder consists of three large fragments, two of which

1 Specimens are preserved in the British Museum ; see Xos.
2437, 2438, 2440, 2441, 2445.

2 See also Mr. Legge's comprehensive and sensible description
of the whole class of objects in Proceedings Soc. Bill, Arch., May,
1900 ; they are also mentioned in connection with Mycenaean
theories by H. R. Hall, Oldest Civilization of Greece, p. 151 ff .

10

PREDYNASTIC HUNTING SCENES

are in the British Museum, an

Green slate object of unknown use dating
from the latter part of the predvnastic
period. British Museum, Nos. 20,790, 20,792.

d one in the Museum of
the Louvre. The re-
liefs upon the larger
object represent hunt-
ing scenes. We see
lions, horned animals
of the deer kind,
jackals, and hares be-
ing hunted in the
desert by half-savage
chiefs and warriors
who wear feathers on
their heads, and at
their backs tails of
some animal, probably
a jackal, hanging from
a girdle or belt. This
tail, which was worn
generally by simple
chiefs at the end of
the predynastic age,
survived, in an arti-
ficial form, as a
ceremonial ornament
which was worn by
the kings, and which
was also regarded as
part of the apparel
of a god. This fact

PREDYNASTIC STONE WEAPONS II

alone is sufficient to indicate the great antiquity
which must be assigned to this extremely interesting-
object. We must first of all note that some of the
warriors carry standards or emblems of the gods, the
most noticeable being that which is surmounted by
the hawk of Horus ; others have bows and arrows,
the heads of the latter being of the squared flint
type which appears to have been commonly used at
that epoch ; others hold stone-headed maces, and
others most curious weapons which consist of stone
celts fastened into wooden hafts. Two men are armed
with double-headed axes, which were probably made of
chert, or flint, and fixed in forked wooden handles.
The use of stone weapons, indicated on this object,
certainly emphasizes its archaic character, for on similar
objects which are known to belong to the days of Aha
and Nar-mer metal weapons are depicted. On the
upper part are two pictures which represent a double-
headed bull, and a coffin or funeral chest, which, from
their position in the scene and their obvious want of
connection with it, must be intended for ideographs ;
if this be so, they are the earliest specimens of Egyptiau
writing known. In the later hieroglyphic system the
latter survives in a practically unchanged form ^5J , and
the former in the form £^2, which is read Ahem ; their
meaning here, however, cannot be stated with certainty.
As a characteristic of the art of the period it may be
noted that the eyes of the men and animals have been
drilled, and it is probable that they were inlaid with

12 TREATMENT OF PRISONERS AFTER A

small pieces of bone or some other light-coloured sub-
stance.

Another object of the same material and style,
which probably dates from the same period as that just
described, is also preserved in the British Museum, 1 and
is here figured. The scene on the Obverse, taken as a
whole, probably represents the treatment which was
meted out to prisoners of war by their captors. On the
right hand top corner we see a captive with his hands
tied behind his back, being thrust out into the desert (?)
by an official who wears a long ornamented robe with
fringe. Five of the captives appear to be dead, and are
being devoured by a lion and vultures ; one, however,
seems to have worked his hands and arms free, and is
endeavouring to escape. All the captives, except one,
are circumcised, and they wear beards. The artistic
treatment of the scene suggests a comparison with the
well-known Stele of the Vultures, which was made for
the early Babylonian king E-annadu, or E-dingira-
nagin, who is supposed to have reigned about B.C. 4500.
On the Eeverse we have the lower portions of the bodies
of two giraffes which evidently were feeding upon a
palm tree. The Beverse of a fragment which seems to
have formed a part of the above object, and which is
now preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 2
supplies us with the head of one of the giraffes feeding
on the leaves of the palm tree, and a bird; and on the

1 No. 20,791.

2 See Legge, Pruc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., June, 1900.

BATTLE IN PREDYNASTIC TIMES

13

Reliefs on a green slate object of unknown use. British Museum, No. 20,791.

EARLIEST FORM OF THE HORUS STANDARD 15

~*

Obverse we find the earliest piece of Egyptian symbolism
known to us. Here we have two captives, with their
hands tied behind
their backs, being,
apparently, led to
slaughter by ani-
mated hawk-
standards, each of
which is provided
with a human arm
and hand which
grasps the arms of
the captive under
its charge. It is
hard not to con-
clude that these
two monuments
were made in the
time of the followers
of the Hawk - god
Horus, and that
the second of them
probably represents
the actual treat-
ment which the
vanquished indi-
genous inhabitants
received at the
hands of their conquerors. The development of the

Fragment in the Ashruolean Museum, Oxford.
Obverse.

Fragment in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Eeverse.

l6 EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF EGYPTIAN ART

art exhibited by the whole group of the green slate
objects now known can be well studied' by means of
the facsimiles published by Mr. Legge, and therefrom
it may be seen that archaic Egyptian art, the first-
fruits of which are well illustrated by the two slate
objects already described, developed itself on lines which,
until quite recently, would not have been considered in
any way of Egyptian character. One of its chief
characteristics is a frequent use of monstrous or exag-
gerated forms of animals, etc. (see Legge, plate 3), which
in historical times never appear on the monuments,
and are, in fact, confined to objects and documents
of a magical character. From certain of these
slate objects (see Legge, plate 5) it is evident that
in the time of Aha and Nar-mer important fortified
towns and cities existed in Egypt, and it is in-
teresting to note that the walls of those of which
names are given are crenellated like the walls of the
tomb of Aha at Nakada, and like the fortified palaces
of the kings of the city of Shirpurla in Babylonia. The
names of such cities are, as might be expected, of very
simple form, e.g., Ka, Em, Khu, Kheper, Ha (?), etc.

In later times, judging by the evidence supplied by
the jar-sealings, large estates were possessed by the king
and by his nobles, and when it was necessary to record
the names of such on seals they were usually enclosed
in similar crenellated ovals. The names of many
officials and nobles who owned landed property are made
known by the jar-sealings and other inscribed objects ^

man

EARLY TITLES AND OFFICES 1J

from the tombs at Abydos, and among such may be
mentioned king Ten's "royal chancellor" y^(Q, or

\$Z ^\) , Hemaka | J? [_) , and Henuka | [_J '

who was the " chief prince " U g), and "royal axe-

or more literally " the two axes of the

king," a title which is not met with after the 1st
Dynasty. Many other office-bearers of the same period
are mentioned on stelae, and on ivory and ebony plaques,
jar-sealings, etc., their titles being more or less of the
same type as those which are found in the IVth and
succeeding dynasties of the Early Empire. We must
here note that no trace of the existence of any regular
priesthood has so far been found on these most ancient
monuments, for the common signs for " libationer " or

"priest" j^S , or "servant of the god" \) , or

"reader" | /fi Jl, literally, "the holder of the book/'

seem to have been unknown. All priestly functions
were probably performed by each head of a family, from
the king downwards, though it is certain, as is the case
with all primitive peoples, that the man of magic and
medicine existed, and, human nature being probably
much the same then as now, no doubt carried on a
thriving business !

From the monuments of Besh, the first king of
the Ilnd Dynasty, we learn that he possessed a

VOL. II. C

l8 THE KING IN THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

name which belonged to him as the representative of the
god Set as well as a Horns name (see Vol. I., p. 207).

The head of the state, though not yet known
by the title of "Per-aa," or "Pharaoh," yet bears
many of the titles which we are accustomed to

associate with him, e.g. f\$^ suten belt, "king of the

South, king of the North ;" and J^&i, which must have

had exactly the same signification ; the first of these
consists of the names for " king " in Upper and Lower
Egypt respectively, and the second describes the king as
lord, or possessor of the two most ancient cities in Upper
and Lower Egypt, i.e., Nekheb and Per-Uatchet, the
seats of the vulture and the snake goddess respectively.
The kings of the 1st Dynasty did not enclose their names
in cartouches, nor did they use a " throne name " ; Besh,
the first king of the Unci Dynasty, was the first to
inaugurate both these customs, though the occurrence
of the throne name is not frequent during the Early
Empire. The king as head of the community represented
on earth Horus, the sky-god, who was at that time re-
garded as the king of the gods ; he was therefore under
the special protection of Horus, and in this capacity had
a special name which was inscribed upon a rectangular

object called in Egyptian "Serekk"

fl

mrfrTrl ' or

" cognizance," i.e., " the thing which makes one known."
This object has been held to be a banner by some, and
a piece of sculptured work by others, but in reality it is

THE HORUS STANDARD

19

Ancient form of the

serekh, or cognizance

of the king-.

a part of the standard of the god Horns on which the
king's name was inscribed. The accompanying illus-
tration shows two Horus standards of the time of Semti,
the fifth king of the 1st Dynasty, 1
each with an uninscribed " serekh "
hanging from the perch on which
the Hawk-god stands. At a later
period, which cannot be exactly in-
dicated, the Horns name became in
some way identified with the ha or
" double " of the king, and the
Horus name therefore became the
name of the king's ha; for this
reason the Horus name of the king is often called
the ha name. The title of the king most familiar
to us, i.e., " Son of the Sun," does not occur on the
contemporaneous monuments of the archaic period,
and the titles " good god," " great god," do not occur
until a later period. Although not yet deified, the king
in the archaic period seems to have been an autocratic
and absolute monarch, whose people were little better
than slaves, and whose nobles owed their existence and
their social position entirely to him; as the kinsman
and representative of the god Horus he was the absolute
lord of life and death. The queen, whether royal mother
or royal wife, though not mentioned on the earliest
monuments, no doubt occupied the same exalted position

1 For an earlier form of the same object see the illustration on
p. 15.

20 PRIVILEGES OF WOMEN IN THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

as was assigned to her in later clays. Manetho tells ns
that in the reign of Ba-en-neter, the third king of the
Ilnd Dynasty, "it was determined that women should
" enjoy royal privileges, i.e., that they should not be dis-
" qualified from ascending the throne and enjoying all the
" dignity and state which appertained thereto." This is
not to be wondered at, for the social position of women
in Egypt was always much higher than in other Eastern
countries; an Egyptian generally traced his pedigree
from a maternal ancestor, as is the case with many
primitive peoples, and the mother, or " lady of the
house," enjoyed in Egypt a position of authority and
importance rarely met with among other nations.

( 21 )

CHAPTEE II.

THE PERIOD OF THE GREAT PYRAMID BUILDERS.

FOURTH DYNASTY. FROM MEMPHIS.

i. %

Ok

Cpji] or MffiEJ] Seneferu >

j?

iTirm

With Seneferu, whose Horus name was
Neb-Maat, and who, besides \S£, lord of

Neb-MaIt,

the
Horus name
of Seneferu.

the shrines of the goddesses Nekhebet and
Uatchet, i.e., "lord of the South, lord of
the North," called himself also the " Golden

Hawk," or " Golden Horns" \^ , we begin

according

the IYth Dynasty; this king-
to Manetho, reigned twenty -nine years.
It is noteworthy that the Tablet of Karnak begins
with his name, a fact which seems to show that
the compilers of such King Lists did not hold
themselves bound to follow historical considerations
in such cases, and that they allowed themselves
to make whatsoever selection of royal names seemed
to them best. Seneferu appears to be the first

22

SENEFERU AT WADI MAGHARA [B.C. 3766

king of Egypt who carried war into foreign countries
on a large scale ; and this fact is illustrated by an
important relief, which is found sculptured on the rocks
in the Wadi Maghara in the Peninsula of Sinai. 1 Here
we see a figure of the king, wearing a crown with plumes

Rock-relief of Seneferu at Wadi Maghara.

and uraei, engaged in the slaughter of a typical Sinaitic
foe of Egypt ; the king is seizing him by the hair of the
head with the left hand, and is about to aim a blow on it

1 See the late Professor Palmer's Sinai from the Fourth Egyptian
Dynasty to the present Day, London, 1878, and Lepsius, Denhmdler,
ii. plate 2. The reliefs on the rocks at Sinai were noted by
Niebnhr as far back as 1762.

B.C. 3766] THE MINES AT WADI MAGHARA 23

with a mace which he holds in his uplifted right hand."
Above the scene, in a cartouche, are the five names and
titles of the king given above, and below is the inscription,
"Seneferu, the great god, the subduer of foreign countries,
"giver of power, stability, life, all health, and all joy of
"heart for ever;" on the right is the Horns name of the
king. It is improbable that Seneferu was the first
Egyptian king to visit the Peninsula of Sinai as a con-
queror, for we know that Tcheser, 1 a king of the Illrd
Dynasty, made his way thither, and that the famous
turquoise mines, which were worked in the district,
supplied him with materials for ornamenting the cham-
bers of his pyramid. Seneferu, however, conquered the
inhabitants of the country, and seized the mines, and
built strong forts in the neighbourhood for Egyptian
garrisons to live in, and to serve as places of refuge for
the miners when suddenly attacked by the natives ; the
ruins of certain stone buildings, which exist in the
Wadi Maghara to this day, have been identified by
modern travellers with the forts of Seneferu. The
spiritual wants of the miners seem to have been minis-
tered to by the priests of the temple which was built
there, and which was dedicated to the goddess Hathor
and to Horus-Sept. The mines are said to have been
worked by means of flint tools only, but some think
that instruments of bronze were also employed.

1 See an article by Benedite in the Becueil, torn. xvi. p. 104,
where Tcheser's Horus name is figured ; it was, apparently, first
noted in the work of the English Survey made in 1869.

24 PYRAMID OF SENEFERU AT DAHSHUR [B.C. 3766

Seneferu built a pyramid which he intended to serve
for his tomb at or near Dahshur, and another which
must be identified with the Pyramid of Medum, and is
situated at a distance of about forty miles to the south
of Cairo. Each pyramid was called Kha Q, a name
which indicates the place where the dead king would rise
with glory to the life beyond the grave, even as the sun
rises with splendour on this world ; but the j3yramid at
Dahshur was distinguished by the addition of the word

" Southern/' i.e., Q /\ X,; the two pyramids together

were indicated by the phrase Q A A . The pyramid

of Medum, which has long been called " Al-Haram al-
Kadda-b," i.e., the " Lying (or False) Pyramid," by the
Arabs of the desert round about, was opened by M.
Maspero in 1881-82, and other excavations were made
on the site in subsequent years. The pyramid is over
120 feet in height, and consists of three stages, which
are about 70, 20, and 30 feet high respectively ; the
stone of which it is built was brought from the
Mukattam hills, but it was never finished. When
opened in modern times, the sarcojDhagus chamber was
found to be empty, and it was discovered that the
pyramid had been broken into and plundered in the
time of the XXth Dynasty, about B.C. 1100. It is a
remarkable building, and it is quite unlike the ordinary
pyramid tombs, although it is entered from the north
side. Originally it consisted of a rectangular, truncated
building with sides which sloped to a common centre

B.C. 3766] PYRAMID OF SENEFERU AT MEDUM

25

at an angle of about 74° ; the king, wishing to enlarge
the mass of masonry, from time to time built round its
sides thick layers of masonry, and at the same time
added to the height of the original building. At length
the tops of the layers of masonry formed a series of
seven steps, and Seneferu no doubt intended to cover it
all over, from apex to base, with a covering of polished
stones. The following illustration is taken from

r-\

r It ... \ \ .

/////////

The Pyramid of Medum. Plan showing- the original building with additions,
the mummy-chamber and the corridor leading thereto.

Medium by Prof. Petrie, who, on the east side of the
pyramid, close to the casing, discovered a courtyard
wherein stood the remains of the small temple which
had been built of limestone ; in the courtyard was an
altar, by the side of which stood two uninscribed stelae.
The inscriptions in and about the pyramid, which were
written by visitors during the XVIIIth Dynasty, prove
that the building was at that time regarded as the tomb
of Seneferu. To the north and east of the pyramid

26 A MAGICIAN MAKES THE WATERS OF THE [B.C. 3766

several of the officials of Seneferu were buried in
"mastaba," or " bench-shaped ; ' tombs ; the largest of
these were built for Ra-hetep and his wife Nefert, and
for Nefer-Maat and his wife Atet, and the statues and
painted scenes which were found in the mastaba of
Ea-hetep are among the finest which have ever been
seen. Near the pyramid of Seneferu a number of tombs
were also found, in which the bodies had been buried in
a contracted position, the knees being sharply bent, and
the thighs at right angles to the body. The right arm
was usually in front, and the left arm was usually
under the body and legs, with the hand under the
knees ; 1 such burials are, of course, survivals of the old
indigenous custom, and the people thus buried were, no
doubt, members of some tribe of the indigenous race which
had survived until this period and which had been brought
into a state of subjection by the dynastic Egyptians.

The wife of Seneferu was called Mertitefs <=> 3^--

^ \\ — H—

and she seems to have been held in high honour after her
husband's death by his successors Khufu and Khafra ;
his daughter Nefertkau was the grandmother of the
priest Seneferu-khaf, whose tomb is at Gizeh. Seneferu
is, according to M. GolenischefT, 2 mentioned in connection
with a year of famine and an invasion of the Amu, a
hostile race of Asiatic origin. An interesting story,
which is well worthy of mention here, is told of Seneferu
in the Westcar Papyrus. 3 It appears that on a certain

1 Petrie, Medum, p. 21.

2 Aegyptische Zeitschrift, 1876, p. 110. 3 Ed. Erman, p. 9.

B.C. 3766] LAKE TO STAND UP IN A HEAP 27

day the king was weary and depressed, and that lie
applied to his nobles to find some means of cheering
him ; as they had nothing to suggest, the king sent for
the magician Tchatcha-enl-ankh, who, having been
brought into the presence, advised the king to go for a
sail on the lake. He next proposed that he should make
the necessary arrangements for the king, and having
brought a boat with twenty young and beautiful virgins
in it, each of whom was provided with a paddle of ebony
inlaid with gold, he invited the king to embark, and
the boat was rowed out on the lake. As the maidens
were rowing, one of them dropped a turquoise ornament
into the water, and when the king had learned what
had happened, he promised to have it found for her.
Having called the magician into his presence and told
him what was wanted, Tchatcha-em-ankh spake certain
words of power which he knew, whereupon one section
of the water of the lake straightway raised itself and
placed itself upon the other portion, which thus became
twenty-four cubits deep instead of twelve as formerly ;
the magician then found the turquoise ornament lying
on the bed of the lake, and taking it up he gave it to
the maiden. This done, he uttered certain words of
power, and the section of the water which had raised
itself up out of its place and set itself upon the other
portion at once descended to its former place, and the
whole lake resumed its normal level of twelve cubits.
Thus we see that in the XYIIIth Dynasty, when the
copy of the story as given in the Westcar Papyrus

28

THE GREAT PYRAMID

[B.C. 3733

was made, the Egyptians believed that their ancestors
in the IVth Dynasty were able to work magic of a
powerful and far-reaching kind. It is impossible not
to call to mind, in connection with the above story, the
narrative in Exodus which tells how Moses, by means
of his rod and words of power, made a way for the
Israelites through the waters of the sea, so that they
might pass over on dry ground whilst the waters stood
up on each side of them like walls.

2.

IfwU

YW) ( *® \ji Khefu, or Khufu,

OT>

Matchetu,

the Horus name

of Khufu.

Khefu, or Khufu, the Souphis of Manetho,
and the Kheops of Herodotus, was, according
to the Westcar Papyrus, the son of Seneferu,
and he is said by Manetho to have reigned
sixty- three years. He was, beyond all doubt,
a mighty builder, and it seems as if all his
energies were spent in arranging for and
watching the construction of the Great
Pyramid at Gizeh, which he intended to be his tomb,
and which has excited the wonder and admiration of
the world. On a rock in the Wadi Maghara is a
relief in which he, like his father, Seneferu, is repre-
sented in the act of clubbing a typical Sinaitic foe,
but there is no record to show that he was ever
regarded as a great warrior. In connection with

B.C. 3733]

KHUFU AT WADf MAGHARA

29

this relief it is interesting to note that he is called
"Khnemu Khufu/' and that the clubbing of the foe
is taking place in the presence of the god Thoth, who
stands there in the form of an ibis-headed man. To
Khufu belongs the credit of having built the first and
greatest pyramid, in the strict sense of the word, just as

Rock -relief of Khufu at Wadi Maghara.

to Seneferu belongs the credit of having built the first
true step pyramid. In passing we may note that the
derivation of the word " pyramid," i.e., 7rupa/j,^, is appar-
ently unknown, and no entirely satisfactory meaning for
it has been put forward ; it may, of course, be a word of
Aryan origin, but we should probably rightly set aside all

30 DERIVATION OF THE WORD "PYRAMID" [B.C. 3733

the fanciful etymologies which connect it with the Greek
word for "fire," and should derive it from some words
of Egyptian origin which were in use in the later periods
of Egyptian history. A very reasonable attempt was
made by Prof. Eisenlohr in 1877 to derive "pyramid"

from the Egyptian words "per-eni-us

} j L___ : _J

<s

n

C2

which seem to express l the conception of " height," or

Rock-relief of Khufu at Wadi Maghara.

" high," and until a better derivation is proposed this
one must form the best that has been made.

According to Herodotus 2 (ii. 124), Cheops, the
builder of the Great Pyramid, was "a man fraughte

1 "Pir-em-us, Ursprung des Wortes irvpa/jils, entweder die Kante
an der Pyramide oder die Gerade, welche von der Spitze der
Pyramide auf die Mitte der Grundlinie gezogen wird." Ein
mathematisches Handbuch der alien Aegypter, p. 260. Borchardt
renders the words "Die aus ws (Grundflache) heranstretende
Linie" ; see Aeg. Zeitschrijt, Bd. 31, p. 14.

2 B. R.'s translation, fol. 1031;.

B.C. 3733]

THE CHARACTER OF KHUFU

31

" with all kynde of vicious demeanour, 1 and wicked con-
" versation. For causing the temples of the gods to be
" fast locked up, he gave out through all quarters of hys
" Empyre, that it myght not be lawfull for any Aegyptian
" to offer sacrifice, to the ende, that beeing seduced from
" the service and reverence of the gods, he might securely

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) at Gizeh.

" employ them in his owne affayres. Some were appoyn-
"ted to digge stones in the mountayne Arabicus, and
" from thence, to convey them to the river Nilus, where
"they were receyved of others which pheryed them over
" the river to the roote of a greate hill named Africus.

1 Compare Manetho (Cory, op. cit., p. 102), "He was arrogant
towards the gods, and wrote the sacred book, which is regarded by
the Egyptians as a work of great importance."

32 BUILDING OF THE GREAT PYRAMID [B.C. 3733

" The whole number of those that were conversaunt iu
" the Kings affayres, was tenne thousande men, serving by
" turnes, every three monethes a thousand. In which
" manner, he helde the people the space of tenne yeares,
" in all whiche tyme, they did nothyng but lie we and cary
" stones, a labour of no lesse importaunce (in my judge-
" mente) then to have built the pyre it selfe, or towre of
" stone, which is in length five furlongs, in breadth
" tenne paces, and in height where it is greatest, to the
"number of eyght paces, beeyng framed of stone,
" curiously carved and ingraven with the pictures of
" beastes. Heerein also were consumed other tenne yeares,
" causing certayne chambers to be cut out under the
"grounde, undermining the stoneworke upon the which
" the towres were founded, whyche hee provided for hys
" sepulcher. The situation heereof was in a small
" Ilande, through the whyche by a trench or small
" draught, he caused the river to have passage. The
"pyre was made stearewise, ascending by steppes or
" degrees orderly placed one above another. Havyng in
"suche sorte finished the lower worke, they devised
" certayne engines or wrestes to heave up stoites from
" the grounde to the first stayre, and from thence
" to the seconde, and so consequently tyll they came to
" the place where the stone shoulde lye, havyng uppon
" each stayre a wreast ; or (that whyche is more likely)
" using one for all, beeyng framed of lyght wood, to the
"intente it might the more easily be remoouved. The
"grosse worke finished, they began to polishe and

B.C. 3733] BUILDING OF THE GREAT PYRAMID 33

" beautifie the towre from the toppe downewarcles, com-
" niing last of all to the neathermost stayre, wherein they
" made a finall ende and conclusion of the beautie and
" grace of all theyr woorkemanshippe. In thys pyre, were
" intayled certayne letters in the Aegyptian language,
" declaring the expence the King was at in the time of his
" building, for mustardseed, oynyons, and garlike, which
" (as I remember) the interpreter told me, did amount to
" the summe of a thousande five hundred talents. If this
" were so, how much shal we deeme to have bene spent
"upon other things, as upon tooles, engins, victuals,
" labouring garments for the workemen, being tenne
" yeares busied in these affayres. I reckon not the time
"wherein they were held in framing and hewing of
" stones to set them in a readinesse for the mayne worke :
" nevther all the space that [was] passed over in the
"conveyance and cariage of the stone to the place of
" building, which was no small numbers of dayes, as also
" the time which was consumed in undermining the
" earth, and cutting out of chambers under the grounde,
" all whyche things drave the King to such a narrow
" straight, that he was fayne to cloute out his devises
" with a most wicked invention, which was this : —
" Perceiving his golden mine to draw low that the divell
"might daunce in the bottome of his bagge and finde
" never a crosse, he made sale of his daughter's honestie,
"willing hir to entertayne tagge and ragge all that
" would come, in case they refused not to pay for their
" pleasure, sithence Venus accepteth not the devotion of
vol. 11. D

34 KHUFU DEGRADES HIS DAUGHTER [B.C. 3733

" sucli as pray with empty hands and threadbare purrses.
" The Lady, willing to obey the testes of the King her
" father, devised also the meane to prolong the memorie of
" herselfe, and to advannce her fame to the notice of all
" ages that should ensue, wherefore she made request to
" suche as had accesse unto her, to give her a stone to
" the building and erection of a worke which she had
" determined, wherewith (as the brute goetli) she gave so
" many stones as served to the framing of a whole pyre,
" situate in the middest of the three former in full view
" and prospect to the greatest pyrame, which is every way
"an acre and an halfe square."

According to Diodorus (i. 63), the Great Pyramid was
built by Chemmis, the eighth king from Remphis, who
was from Memphis, and reigned fifty years. " He built
" the greatest of the three pyramids, which were accounted
" amongst the seven wonders of the world. They stand
" towards Libya, 120 furlongs from Memphis, and 45 from
" the Nile. The greatness of these works, and the ex-
" cessive labour of the workmen seen in them, do even
" strike the beholders with admiration and astonishment.
"The greatest being four-square, took up, on every
" square, 700 feet of ground in the basis, and above 600
"feet in height, spiring up narrower by little and little,
" till it came up to the point, the top of which was six
" cubits square. It is build of solid marble throughout, of
"rough work, but of perpetual duration: for though it
" be now a thousand years since it was built, (some say
" above three thousand and four hundred), yet the stones

B.C. 3733] THE NARRATIVE OF DIODORUS 35

" are as firmly jointed, and the whole building as entire
"and without the least decay, as they were at the first
" laying an erection. The stone, they say, was Drought a
"long way off, out of Arabia, and that the work was
."raised by making mounts of earth; cranes and other
" engines being not known at that time. And that which
"is most to be admired, is to see such a foundation so
" imprudently laid, as it seems to be, in a sandy place,
"where there is not the least sign of any earth cast up,
" nor marks where any stone was cut and polished ; so
" that the whole pile seems to be reared all at once, and
" fixed in the midst of heaps of sand by some god, and
"not built by degrees by the hands of men. Some of
" the Egyptians tell wonderful things, and invent strange
" fables concerning these works, affirming that the mounts
" were made of salt and salt-petre, and that they were
" melted by the inundation of the river, and being so
" dissolved, everything was washed away but the building
" itself. But this is not the truth of the thing ; but the
" great multitude of hands that raised the mounts, the
" same carried back the earth to the place whence they dug
"it; for they say, there were 360,000 men employed in
"this work, and the whole was scarce completed in
"twenty years time." (Booth's translation, p. 65.) In
the opinion of Diodorus the architects who built the
Pyramids are "much more to be admired than the kings
" themselves that were at the cost. For those performed
" all by their own ingenuity, but these did nothing but
" by the wealth handed to them by descent from their

36 PLINY'S ACCOUNT OF THE [B.C. 3733

" predecessors, and by the toil and labour of other

"men.'

The account of the Pyramids given by Pliny (xxxvi.,
16, 17) is of interest, and is as follows : —

" The largest Pyramid is built of stone quarried in
Arabia ; three hundred and sixty thousand men, it is
said, were employed upon it twenty years, and the
three were completed iu seventy-eight years and
four months. They are described by the following
writers : — Herodotus, Euhemerus, Duris of Samos,
Aristagoras, Dionysius, Artemidorus, Alexander Poly-
histor, Butoridas, Antisthenes, Demetrius, Demoteles,
and Apion. These authors, however, are disagreed
as to the persons by whom they were constructed;
accident having, with very considerable justice, con-
signed to oblivion the names of those who erected
such stupendous memorials of their vanity. Some
of these writers inform us that fifteen hundred talents
were expended upon radishes, garlic, and onions alone.
The most difficult problem is, to know how the
materials for construction could possibly be carried to
so vast a height. According to some authorities, as
the building gradually advanced, they heaped up
against it vast mounds of nitre and salt ; which piles
were melted after its completion, by introducing
beneath them the waters of the river. Others, again,
maintain, that bridges were constructed, of bricks of
clay, and that, when the Pyramid was completed,
these bricks were distributed for erecting the houses

B.C. 3733] GREAT PYRAMID OF KHUFU ^7

" of private individuals. For the level of the river,
" tliey say, being so mucli lower, water could never by
" any possibility have been brought there by the medium
" of canals. In the interior of the largest Pyramid there
" is a well, eighty-six cubits deep, which communicates
" with the river, it is thought. The method of ascertain-
" ing the height of the Pyramids and all similar edifices
" was discovered by Thales of Miletus ; he measuring
" the shadow at the hour of the day at which it is
" equal in length to the body projecting it. Such are
" the marvellous Pyramids ; but the crowning marvel
" of all is, that the smallest, but most admired of
" them — that we may feel no surprise at the opulence
" of the kings — was built by Ehodopis, a courtesan !
"This woman was once the fellow-slave of Aesopus the
" philosopher and fabulist, and the sharer of his bed;
"but what is much more surprising is, that a courtesan
"should have been enabled, by her vocation, to amass
" such enormous wealth. The largest Pyramid occupies
" seven jugera of ground, and the four angles are equi-
" distant, the face of each side being eight hundred and
"thirty-three feet in length. The total height from
"the ground to the summit is seven hundred and
" twenty -five feet, and the platform on the summit is
" sixteen feet and a half in circuit. Of the second
"Pyramid, the faces of the four sides are each seven
" hundred and fifty-seven feet and a half in length.
"The third is smaller than the others, but far more
"prepossessing in appearance : it is built of Aethiopian

38 ACCOUNTS OF THE GREAT PYRAMID [B.C. 3733

" stone, and the face between the four corners is three
"hundred and sixty-three feet in extent."

The account given of the Pyramids by Strabo is
meagre ; he says (xvii. 1. § 33) : " At the distance of 40
" stadia from Memphis is a brow of a hill, on which are
" many pyramids, the tombs of the kings. Three of them
" are considerable. Two of these are reckoned among the
" ' Seven Wonders.' They are a stadium in height, and
" of a quadrangular shape. Their height somewhat ex-
" ceeds the length of each of the sides. One pyramid is
" a little larger than the other. At a moderate height
" in one of the sides is a stone, which may be taken out ;
" when that is removed, there is an oblique passage
" [leading] to the tomb. They are near each other, and
" upon the same level. Farther on, at a greater height
" of the mountain, is the third pyramid, which is much
" less than the two others, but constructed at much
"greater expense j for from the foundation nearly as far
" as the middle, it is built of black stone." Many of the
Arab writers have described and discussed the Pyramids.
Thus 'Abel al-Latif, quoting other authorities, says l
that the Great Pyramid is 317 cubits high, and that its
sloping sides are each 460 cubits in length ; personally
he doubted these measurements, and states that he
believes the height of the building to be 400 cubits,
and that he one day intends to verify these figures.
He thought that of all the great works in Egypt the

See Silvestre de Sacy, Relation d-s VJEgypte, Paris, 1810, pp.
171, 177, 219.

B.C. 3733] BY STRABO AND ARAB WRITERS 39

Pyramids were the most to be admired, and he gives
details concerning the attempts which were made to
wreck the Great Pyramid by Othman and other Muham-
madan rulers.

The fullest and most interesting account of the
Pyramids given by any Arabic writer is that of Al-
Makrizi ; see the Bulak edition of his works, vol. i.,
p. Ill if.

Abu'1-Fida in his Geography : describes the Pyramids,
Al-Akram, and Al-Haraman, as being the tombs of
ancients, and he mentions their great height; Mas'udi
relates 2 a description of the manner in which they were
built, according to statements made on the subject by a
Copt, and adds a little account of the contents of the
texts which were inscribed on their sides ; and the
geographer Yakut has collected 3 from Muhammadan
sources a number of very curious and interesting tradi-
tions concerning the observations of stars taken near
the Great Pyramid. Among Christian Syrian writers
who have described the Pyramids we may mention
Dionysius of Tell Mahre, who flourished in the IXtli
century of our era. In the course of his travels he
tells us: "We saw in Egypt the pyramids of which
"the Theologian speaks in his songs. They are not
" the granaries of Joseph, as certain folk have thought,

1 See the edition of the Arabic text by Reinaud and McGuckin
de Slane, Paris, 1840, p. 108.

2 Prairies cVOr, ed. B. de Meynard, torn. ii. p. 401.

3 Ed. Wustenfeld, torn. iv. p. 963 (Al-Haraman).

40 THEORIES OF THE CONSTRUCTION [B.C. 3733

"but marvellous structures which have been built above
" the tombs of aucient kings. They are solid and massive,
" and not hollow and empty. We examined the opening
" which exists on the side of one of these pyramids, and
"it is about forty cubits deep, We were able to ascertain
" that these pyramids are built of hewn stones which are
" laid one upon the other in such wise that they form a
" base which is five hundred cubits in length on each
" side, and the layers continue to diminish in size as they
" ascend until that at the top is only one cubit [square].
" The pyramids are two hundred and fifty cubits in
" height. Each stone measures from ten to fifteen cubits
"each way, and the pyramids at a distance resemble
" high mountains." Dionysius also mentions the obelisks
of Heliopolis, which he describes as being sixty cubits
high and six cubits square, and made of hard stone. In
his time, apparently, the " white brass " caps with which
their points are said to have been covered were still
upon them, and he says that each metal cap weighs one
thousand pounds. 1

The method actually followed in the construction of
the Great Pyramid and of its fellows has been much
discussed from the time of Lepsius downwards. Accord-
ing to this eminent man, after a suitable site had
been chosen and cleared, a mass of rock was, if
possible, left in the middle of the area to form the
core of the building ; around this core a truncated
pyramid was built, layer by layer, the steps being

1 See Chronique cle Denys de Tell-Mahre, Paris, 1895, p. xxv.

B.C. 3733] OF THE GREAT PYRAMID 41

filled up with suitably shaped blocks of stone. Coat
after coat of stone was built round the work, which
grew larger and larger until it was finished. Dr. Lepsius
thought that on ascending the throne a king built for
his tomb a small but complete pyramid, and that he
built a new coating of stone round it every year ; and
that when he died the sides of the pyramid, which then
resembled long flights of steps, were finished off by
filling up the steps with right-angled triangular blocks
of stone. This explanation has been generally accepted,
and it certainly answers satisfactorily more objections
than do the views of other theorists on this matter ;
Prof. Petrie, however, thinks that the "great pyramid
" was set out from the first upon a vast scale . . . and
" that it could not have been designed of any much
" smaller size is shown conclusively by the internal pas-
" sages. The entrance to these would have been quite
"impracticable in design on any size of building not
"much over two-thirds of the present base. The actual
" size, moreover, shows that both this and the Pyramid of
" Mechim were designed to an exact dimension/' 1 On
the other hand, Herr Borchardt is convinced, after an ex-
haustive study of the subject, that Dr. Lepsius's pyramid
accretion theory is substantially correct, and that it
needs correction in a few minor points only. In certain
cases the original plans were strictly adhered to, but in
others they were modified or enlarged according to the
fancies of those who built for themselves pyramids.

1 History of Egypt, vol. i. p. 3S.

42 AREA OF GREAT PYRAMID AT BASE [B.C. 3733

This last view agrees very well with the known facts ;
a matter of this kind must be settled by the trained
architect and not by the Egyptologist. The Great
Pyramid, which was originally covered with inscribed
slabs of smooth limestone or polished granite, is 451
feet high, and the greatest length of each of the
four sides at the base is about 755 feet ; originally its

Diagram showing the arrangement of the passages in the Great Pyramid, and
" the position of the sarcophagus chambers.

sides were 20 feet longer, and it was about 30 feet
higher. The cubic contents of the masonry, according
to a recent calculation, amount to over 3,000,000 yards,
and the pyramid covers an area of twelve and a half
acres; in Egyptian the building was called Khut

^ J A, i.e., "Glory." The Great Pyramid has

formed the subject of some of the most fanciful theories

B.C. 3733] HERUTATAF AND THE MAGICIAN 43

whicli have ever been evolved concerning a building,
and until quite recently certain writers solemnly declared
that beneath it and inside it there were chambers filled
with gold, and silver, and precious stones, in vast quan-
tities ; it cannot be too clearly stated that this pyramid
was a tomb, and that it had no connection whatsoever
with antediluvian patriarchs, and was not built by or
for any one mentioned in Holy Scripture.

Of Khufu, or Cheops, the Westcar Papyrus has
preserved an interesting story whicli illustrates the
power of the magician of the period. It seems that the
king's son, Herutataf, was one day telling him of the
skill possessed by the ancients in working magic, and in
answer to some remark made by his father, Herutataf
vjromised to produce a magician who lived in Tet-
Seneferu, who was 110 years old, and who had the
power of re-attaching to its body a head which had
been cut off. Khufu at once ordered his son to go
and bring the sage into his presence, and the royal
barge having been brought, Herutataf set out to fulfil
his father's behest. In due course the abode of Teta
the magician was reached, and when he had been
informed of the cause of the prince's visit, he rose up
and with his help reached the river, where he em-
barked on the royal barge ; after a time the party
arrived at Ivhufu's palace, and the coming of the sage
was announced. When Teta had entered the presence,
the king asked him if he could do according to what
Herutataf had declared, and Teta ha vino- answered in

%&

44

THE POWER OF THE MAGICIAN [B.C. 3733

the affirmative, the king wished to have a prisoner
brought that he might see the doom inflicted upon

him ; but the magician
objected to exercising
his skill upon a human
being, and suggested
that a sacred bird
or animal should be
brought for the pur-
pose. Thereupon a
goose was fetched,
and Teta, having cut
off its head, laid the
body on one side of
the apartment and the
head on the other ;
this done, he rose up
and began to utter cer-
tain words of power,
whereupon the body
began to move and
the head likewise, and
each time they moved
they came nearer to
each other, until at
length the head moved
to its former place on
the neck of the bird, which straightway cackled. The
experiment was then repeated by Teta upon another

Khufu, King- of Egypt.

(The original is in the Egyptian Museum,

Cairo.)

B.C. 3700] THE REIGN OF RA-TET-F 45

kind of bird, and afterwards upon an ox, and in these
cases the heads were rejoined to their bodies, and bird
and beast stood ivp and lived as before.

3. 4y^ (Off * — 1 Ra-TET-f, ( PaTOL<T7)<;.

Ratetf, who is most certainly to be identified with
the Ratoises of Manetho, is placed next to Khnfn
because his name follows that of Khufu in the Tablet
of Abydos ; he is said to have reigned twenty-five
years. Some authorities make him to be the successor
of Khaf-Ra, and others of Men-kau-Ra, but until some
sure testimony from the monuments is forthcoming the
position of his name in the Tablet of Abydos must be
regarded as indicating his true place among kings of
the IVth Dynasty. On the other hand, it must not be
forgotten that Mertitefes, the widow of Seneferu, men-
tions Khufu and Khaf-Ra as the immediate successors
of her husband. 1 It will be remembered that the
magician Teta lived in a district which was probably
named after Ratetef or Tetef-Ra, and the "Field of
Ratetef " was owned by an official called Per-sen. Of
the details of the reign of Ratetef nothing whatsoever
is known, but it may be assumed that it was either not
so long as Manetho declares, or that if it was, the glory
of this king was dwarfed by that of the great pyramid
builders, Khufu, Khaf-Ra, and Men-kau-Ra.

1 Etudes E~gyptologiques, torn. ix. p. 62; de Rouge, Six
Premieres Dijnasties, p. 37.

1

TjSER-AB,

46 THE REIGN OF KHAF-RA [B.C. 3666

4. 4^) [O Q *~- J Kha-f-Ka, Xe$pi)v.

Kha-f-ba, or Khepliren, the Suphis of
Manetho, whom he declares to have reigned
sixty-six years, is known to history chiefly
by the pyramid which he built for his tomb
close by that of Khufu ; Herodotus says
theHorasnanie(ii. 129) that Khaf-Bfi was the brother of
Khufu, but Diodorus, after saying the same
thing (i. 64), mentions the theory that Khufu was
succeeded, not by his brother Khepliren, but by his
son Khabruen. Which of the two views is correct
cannot be said, for the monuments supply no decisive
information on the matter; but Diodorus goes on to
say: "All agree in this, that the successor, in imitation
" of his predecessor, erected another pyramid like to the
" former, both in structure and artificial workmanship,
" but not near so large, every square of the basis being
" only a furlong in breadth. Upon the greater pyramid
"was inscribed the value of the herbs and onions that
" were spent upon the labourers during the works, which
" amounted to above sixteen hundred talents. There is
" nothing written upon the lesser : the entrance and
" ascent is only on one side, cut by steps into the main
" stone. Although the kings designed these two for their
" sepulchres, yet it happened that neither of them were
"there buried. For the people, being incensed at them
"by the reason of the toil and labour they were put to,

B.C. 3666] THE PYRAMID OF KHAF-RA 47

" and the cruelty and oppression of their kings, threatened
" to drag their carcases out of their graves, and pull them
" by piecemeal, and cast them to the dogs ; and therefore
" both of them, upon their beds, commanded their servants
"to bury them in some obscure place." (Booth's trans-
lation, p. 66.) On the other hand, Herodotus says (ii. 27) :
" Ensuing the raigne of Cheops, whose kingdome con-
"tinued the space of fifty yeares, the chiefe governe-
"ment was committed to Chephrenes, his brother, which
" followed the steps of his predecessor as well in other
" things, as also in building of a pyre, howbeit, not so huge
" and great as that which his brother had finished before
" him, for we took the measure of them all. Moreover,
" such underworke wrought out in caves and chambers
" under the ground as is to be seene in the pyre of Cheops,
" are wanting in this, besides the laborious and toilesome
" worke which they had to derive and drawe the river to
" that place, which hath his course through the middest
" of the former pyre, hemming in the whole Hand
" wherein it is situate: within the compasse whereof,
" they affirme that Cheops himselfe was buried. By
" whome in his lifetime, an house was framed of one
" stone alone, diversly coloured, which he had out of the
"countrey of Ethiopia, forty foote lower then the pi re
"it selfe, yet planted and built upon the selfesame
"foundation. Chephrenes also (by the computation of
" the Aegyptians) ruled the countrey fiftie yeares, by
" which meanes they make account that their miserie
"continued an hundred and five yeares, at which time

48

THE PYRAMID OF KHAF-RA

[B.C. 3666

" the temples of their gods were unfrequented, abiding
" still from time to time sealed up and unopened ;
"wherefore these princes the Aegyptians will not name
"for the hatred they beare them, calling their pyres

"the towres of the
" shepeheard Phili-
"tio, who at that
" time kept sheepe
" in those places."

The pyramid of
Khaf-Ea was called
by the Egyptians
" Ur " ^ ^, i.e.,
"Great"; the name
of this king has
not been found in-
scribed on any part
of it, but the frag-
ment of a marble
object inscribed
Khaf-Ra, which
was found near the
temple close by this
pyramid, confirms
the statements of
the Greek writers,
and there is no reasonable ground for doubting the cor-
rectness of the generally received view on the subject.
This pyramid, which was first opened in modern times by

Kha-f -Ra, King of Egypt.
(The original is in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.)

B.C, 3666] THE SPHINX AND ITS TEMPLE 49

Belzoni in 1818, is about 450 feet high, and the length
of each side at the base is about 700 feet ; according to
a recent calculation l the cubic measure of the masonry
is now 2,156,960 yards, and it is said to weigh 4,883,000
tons. The pyramid is entered by two openings in the
north side, and the rock upon which it rests was
scarped on the north and west sides to make the
foundation level. Connected with the Pyramid of
Khaf-Ka is the Temple of Seker-Osiris, commonly
called the Temple of the Sphinx, which was built of
granite and alabaster, and which was discovered by
Mariettein 1853 ; it lies about forty yards to the south-
east of the right foot of the Sphinx at G-izeh. The
pillars are also made of granite, and are in shape square.
To the east of the smaller of the two halls of the
building is a well in which nine statues of Khaf-Ba
were found. The remains of this temple are eloquent
witnesses to the skill which the Egyptians had acquired
in the art of working and polishing granite and other
hard stones.

To the period of the first or second of the three
great pyramid builders we shall probably be right in
assigning the Sphinx, although it is quite possible
that it may be much older ; it is one of the most
wonderful and imposing of the monuments of Egypt.
It is hewn out of the living rock, but has been often
repaired. It represents a man-headed lion ; the body is

J Baedeker, Egypt, p. 115.
VOL. II. L

50 THE SPHINX A FORM OF HARMACHIS [B.C. 3666

about 150 feet long, the paws 50 feet long, the head
30 feet long, the face 14 feet wide, and from the top
of the head to the base of the monument the height is
about 70 feet. The face was painted reel, and above
the forehead was sculptured the uraeus, the symbol of
divinity and royalty, but most of the traces of these
disappeared during the course of the XlXth century.
Some hold the view that the Sphinx represents Amen-
em-hat III., a king of the Xllth Dynasty, and that it
was fashioned by him, but no conclusive evidence has been
adduced in support of this view, and the general opinion
of the best informed authorities is that it belongs to a far
older period. The Egyptians called the Sphinx " Hu "
x ^K JbsS, and he represented Harmachis, a form of
the Sun-god ; the fact that they connected it with this
ancient god seems to indicate that they assigned a high
antiquity to the object. We have no mention in the
early texts of the Sphinx, but a red granite tablet was
found between its paws which records the excavation,
and clearing, and repairs of the Sphinx which were
effected by Thothmes IV., a king of the XVIIIth
Dynasty. It is stated thereon that Harmachis appeared
to the king and promised to bestow upon him the crown
of Egypt, if he would dig his image, i.e., the Sphinx,
out of the sand. In the thirteenth line of the inscription
the cartouche of Khfif-Ba occurs, but the text is too
mutilated to see in what exact connection ; there is
no good reason for asserting on the authority of the
inscription that Khaf-Ba made the Sphinx, but it is

B.C, 3666] THE SPHINX AND ITS AGE 51

quite certain that the scribe who drafted the text repre-
sented the tradition current in the XVIIIth Dynasty,
that this king was in some way connected with it, and
a native tradition of this kind is entitled to far more
respect and belief than the statements made on the
subject by modern writers. The late Dr. Brugsch
thought that the Sphinx already existed in the time of
Khaf-Ra, and his opinion was shared by M. de Rouge l
and Dr. Birch ; 2 the view taken by M. Maspero of
the meaning of the allusion in the text to Khaf-Ra
is that this king excavated or cleared the Sphinx
from sand, and that we have in it an almost certain
proof that in the time of Khufu and of his prede-
cessors the Sphinx was already buried in the sand.
The name " Sphinx " was given to the manheaded
lion at Gizeh by the Greeks, probably because they
connected it with their own mythological figure,
which, however, had the winged body of a lion, and
the breast and upper part of a woman ; 4 it seems,
though, that the Sphinx in any form is of Egyptian
origin, a view which is supported by several Greek
traditions.

1 Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. i. p. 80.

2 Vyee, Pyramids of Gizeh, vol. iii. p. 115.

3 "II y avait la, je crois, l'indication d'un deblaiernent du
Sphinx, opere sous ce. prince, par suite, la preuve a peu pres
certaine que le Sphinx etait ensable deja au temps de Kheops et de
ses predecesseurs " (Les 0rigine3, p. 366) ; and compare Wiede-
mann, Aegyptische Geschichte, p. 187.

4 See Aelian, Hist. Animal., xii. 7.

52 THE SPHINX THE FATHER OF TERROR [B.C. 3666

Of tlie Sphinx Pliny and 'Abd al-Latif say : —

"In front of these pyramids is the Sphinx, a still
"more wondrous object of art, but one upon which
" silence has been observed, as it is looked upon as a
" divinity by the people of the neighbourhood. It is
" their belief that Harmais was buried in it, and they
" will have it that it was brought there from a distance.
" The truth is, however, that it was hewn from the
" solid rock ; and from a feeling of veneration, the face
" of the monster is coloured red. The circumference of
" the head, measured round the forehead, is one hundred
" and two feet, the length of the feet being one hundred
" and forty-three, and the height from the belly to the
" summit of the asp on the head sixty-two." (Pliny,
Hist. Nat., xxxvi. 17). "About a bow shot from these
"pyramids a man may see the colossal figure of a head
" and neck emerging from the ground. To this figure
"the name of ' Abu'1-hawl ' (I.e., Father of Terror) has
" been given, and it is said that the body to which this
"head belongs is buried under the ground. Judging
" of the dimensions of the body by that of the head it
"must be more than seventy cubits in length. The
" face is red-coloured, and on it is a red varnish,
" which is as brilliant as if it was new. This figure
" is very beautiful, and its mouth bears the impress
"of grace and beauty, and it may be said to smile
"graciously." ('Abd al-Latif, De Sacy's translation,
pp. 179, 180.)

B.C 3633]

THE REIGN OF MYCERINUS

53

5- 4as (O e= 1^1 Men-kau-Ra, Mevxepw*) ov

| MvKepivos.

c £^ v..

e^ y

Of the life and history of Men-kau-Ra no details
whatsoever are known, and though, according to
Mane th o, he
reigned sixty -
three years, the
principal event
of this long-
period of rule
seems to have
been the build-
ing at Gizeh
of the third
pyramid, which
he intended for
his tomb ; but
before referring
to this building-
it will be best
to repeat what
is said about
him by Greek
writers. Accord-
ing to Herodo-
tus (ii. 129),
"Chephrenes dying, yeelded the Kingdome to

Men-kau-Ra, King of Egypt.
(The original is in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

54 MYCERINUS THE WISE AND GOOD [B.C. 363

" Mycerinus, the sonne of liis brother Cheops, who,
" escliuing the wicked acts and detestable practises of
" his father, caused the temples to be set open, giving
" libertie to the people being so long distressed under the
" governement of his father and uncle, to follow their
" owne affayres, and returne to their ancient custom of
" sacrifice, ministering iustice above all the Kings that
" were before him ; for which cause, none of all the
" princes that have borne rule in Egypt is so greatly
"praysed and renowmed, both for other causes which
" were wisely taken up by him in iudgement, and chiefly
"for this, that a certayne Aegyptian much complayning
" that the King had wronged him in deciding his cause,
" he commaunded him to value the losse which he had
" suffered by him, which the partie doing, he gave him so
" much of his owne goods to make him a recompence.
" Mycerinus in this wise governing the common weale
" with great clemency, and seekying by vertue to advance
"his fame, was sodeinely daunted by a great misfortune,
"the death of his onely daughter, having no more
"children but her, which was the first and greatest
" hartbreake that befell him in his kingdome. For
"which cause, being stricken with sorrowe above
" measure, and desirous to solemnize her funeralles by
" the most royall and princely kinde of buryall that
" could be devised : he caused an oxe to be made of
"wood, inwardly vauted and hollow within, which being
" layde over and garnished most curiously with gilt, he
" inclosed therein the wanne and forlorne corpse of his

B.C. 3633] NARRATIVE BY HERODOTUS 55

best beloved daughter. This royal tombe was not
interred and buryed in the grounde, but rem ayned unto
our age in the city Sais in open view, standing in a
certayne parlour of the King's pallace, adorned and set
foorth for the same purpose, with most beautifull and
costly furniture. The custome is evermore in the
daye time to cast into the belly of the oxe sweete and
precious odoures of all sortes that may be gotten : and
in the nighte to kindle a lampe, which burnetii by the
tomb till the next daye. In a chamber next adioyning
are certayne pictures of women that were the concu-
bines of Mycerinus, if we may beleeve the talke of those
that in the same city of Sais are professours in religion,
forsomuch as there are seene standing in that place
certayne mighty images made of wood, tvventye or there-
aboutes in number, the most parte of them bare and
naked, but what women they resemble, or whose
pictures they be, I am not able to alleadge more then
hearesay, notwithstanding, there were which as touch-
ing the gilded oxe, and the other images framed this
tale, that Mycerinus being inamoured of his own
daughter, dealt unlawfully with her besides the course
of nature, who for intollerable greefe hanging her selfe,
was intombed in that oxe by her father : the Queene
her mother causing the hands of all her gentlewomen to
be cut off, by whose meanes she had been betrayed to
serve her father's lust, for which cause (say they) are
these images portrayed, to declare the misfortune which
they abode in their lifetime. But this is as true as the

56 MYCERINUS AND THE OX [B.C. 3633

" man in tlie moone, for that a man Avitli lialfe an eye
" may clearely perceive, that their hands fel off for very
" age, by reason that the wood through long continuance
" of time was spaked and perished, whiche even to our
" memory were to be seene lying at the feete of those
"which were portrayed. The oxe wherein the young
" princesse lay was sumptuously clad, and arayed all the
" body with a gorgeous mantle of Phenicia, hys head and
" necke beeyng sponged and layde over with braces and
" plates of golde of a marvaylous thickenesse. Betweene
" his homes was set a globe or circle of golde, glistering
" as the sunne. Neyther is the oxe standing and borne
" up uppon hys feete, but kneeletli as it were on hys
" knees, equal! in bignesse to a great heighfer. The
" manner is once a yeare to bring this image out of the
" parlour wherein it is kepte, having first of all well
"beaten and cudgelled a certayne image of one of theyr
" Saintes, whome in thys case wee thinke it not lawfull
" to us to name. The talke goeth, that the Lady besought
"the Kyng her father that beeing dead, she might once a
"yeare behold the sunne, whereof sprang the custome and
" maner aforesayde.

" After this, there befell unto him another mischiefe
" that fate as neere his skirtes as the death of his dilling,
" insomuch that he was readie to runne beyonde hym-
" selfe in sorrowe. A prophecie arose in the city of
"Butis, that the tearme of five yeares fully expired, the
"Kyng shoulde ende hys lyfe, leaving his Kyngdome to
" be ruled of another. Whereof the Kyng beeing adver-

B.C. 3633] HE CHANGES HIS COURSE OF LIFE

57

"tised, and greately greeving at the rigorous and unmst
"dealing of tlie gods, sped a messenger to the place
"where the seate of prophecie was helde, to expostulate
" with the god, for what cause (since hys father and
"unckle, who had beene so unmindful of the gods, shut-
"ting up their temples, and making havocke of the
" people, had lived so long) he hymselfe, that had dealte
"better with them, and caused these thynges to bee
"restored agayne, should so soone be deprived of the
" benefite of lyfe, to whome aunswere was made, that hys
" dayes were therefore shortened because bee tooke a
"wrong course and dyd not as he should do, beyng
" appoynted by the celestiall powers, that the conntrey
" of Aegypt should suffer miserie, and be afflicted by
"their princes ye space of an hundred and fifty yeares,
" which the two former princes well understanding,
"was neverthelesse by him neglected and left unper-
" formed. Mycerinus hearing this round reply, and
"perceiving that his thread was almost spoon, set al at
"revell, making great provision of lights and tapers,
" which at eventide he caused to be lighted, passing the
" night in exceeding great mirth and princely banquet-
" ting, letting slip no time wherein he either wandered
"not alongst the river, and through the woods and
" groves of the countrey, or entertayned the time in some
"pleasant devises, following all things that might eyther
" breede delighte, or bring pleasure, which things he did,
"to the end he might proove the prophecie false, and
" convince the god of a lie, making twelve yeares of five,

58 THE PYRAMID OF MYCERINUS [B.C. 3633

" by spending the nightes also as he did the dayes.
" Mycerinus also built a pyre, not equall to that which
"his father had set up before him, beeing in measure
"but twentie foote square, framed quadrangularly, and
" another lower then that, of three acres in compasse,
"being built to the middest of the stone of Ethiopia."
(B. R.'s translation, fol. 105a if.)

According to Diodorus (i. 64), "Mycerinus, the son
" of him who built the first pyramid, began a third
" [pyramid], but died before it was finished; every square
"of the basis was three hundred feet. The walls for
" fifteen stories high were of black marble, like that of
" Thebes, the rest was of the same stone with the other
" pyramids. Though the other pyramids went beyond
"this in greatness, yet this far excelled the rest in the
"curiosity of the structure, and the largeness of the
" stones. On that side of the pyramid towards the
" north, was inscribed the name of the founder Mycerinus.
"This king, they say, detesting the severity of the
" former kings, carried himself all his days gently and
" graciously towards all his subjects, and did all that
"possibly he could to gain their love and goodwill
" towards him ; besides other things, he expended vast
" sums of money upon the oracles and worship of the
" gods ; and bestowing large gifts upon honest men, whom
" he judged to be injured, and to be hardly dealt with in
"the courts of justice." (Booth's translation.) Hero-
dotus relates that the Greeks thought the Pyramid of
Mycerinus to be the "work of the courtesan Rhodopis,"

B.C. 3633] THE PYRAMID OF MYCERINUS 59

and this legend is repeated by both Diodorus and
Strabo (xvii. 1) ; the latter says that, according to
Sappho the poetess, she was called Doriche, and adds
the following : — "A story is told of her, that, when she
" was bathing, an eagle snatched one of her sandals from
"the hands of her female attendant and carried it to #
" Memphis ; the eagle, soaring over the head of the king,
"who was administering justice at the time, let the
" sandal fall into his lap. The king, struck with the
" shape of the sandal, and the singularity of the accident,
"sent over the country to discover the woman to whom
" it belonged. She was found in the city of Naucratis,
" and brought to the king, who made her his wife. At
" her death she was honoured with the above-mentioned
" tomb."

The large Pyramid of Mycerinus at Grizeh, which was
called " Her " * A , is built upon a rock with a
sloping surface ; the inequality of the surface has been
corrected by building up courses of large blocks of
stones upon it. The remains of the old outside granite
casing are visible to a depth of about thirty feet ; the
length of each side at the base is about 350 feet, and
its height is a little over 210 feet. The pyramid is
entered on the north side, and the slanting granite-
lined corridor is about 104 feet long, and having
passed through a horizontal passage and two large
halls, a shaft which leads to the mummy-chamber is
reached; this chamber is about forty-five feet long,
and some sixty feet below the level of the ground, and

6o

THE COFFIN OF MYCERINUS [B.C. 3633

in it was found the sarcophagus of Men-kau-Ra. In
a lower chamber were discovered a wooden coffin in-
scribed with his name and titles, and the remains of
a human body wrapped in a coarse woollen cloth of a
yellow colour, and a part of the cover
of the stone sarcophagus. The stone
sarcophagus, having been cased in
strong timbers, was with great diffi-
culty taken out of the pyramid, and
having been taken to Alexandria,
was despatched to London on board a
merchant ship in 1838 ; the ship was
never heard of after her departure
from Leghorn on October 12th of
that year, and it is presumed that
she was wrecked off Carthagena, for
some parts of the wreckage were
picked up near that port. The
wooden coffin and the human re-
mains, those of a man, safely reached
London, and they are now preserved
in the British Museum. So far back
as 1883, M. Maspero stated i that
certain Egyptologists had declared
the wooden coffin of Men-kau-Ra to
be a " restoration " of the XXVIth Dynasty, and not an
original piece of work of the IVtli Dynasty, and more

"Remains of the cover

of the coffin of Myceri-

mis. (British Museum,

No. 6G47).

1 Guide du Visiteur de Boulaq, p. 310.

B.C. 3633] THE SARCOPHAGUS OF MYCERINUS

6l

recent writers have adopted their view ; l but, like
Dr. Birch, he was of opinion that the coffin certainly
belonged to the IVth Dynasty, and adduced in support
of his views the fact of the existence of portions of a
similar coffin of Mehti-em-sa-f, a king of the Vlth
Dynasty. The statements put forward in support of
the " restoration " theory are inconclusive, and quite
insufficient to set aside the opinion of the experienced
archaeologists mentioned above. The text on the cover

The Sarcophagus of Mycerinus.

of the coffin, which is here reproduced, reads : " [Hail]
" Osiris, King of the South and North, Men-kau-Ea,
" living for ever, born of heaven, conceived of Nut, heir
" of Seb, his beloved ; Thy mother Nut spreadeth her-
"self over thee in her name of 'mystery of heaven' ;
" she granteth that thou mayest exist as a god without
"thy foes, King of the South and North, Men-kau-Ea,
" living for ever ! "

1 See Aeyyptische Zeitschrift, Bd. xxx. pp. 94-100*

62 THE BOOK OF THE DEAD [B.C. 3633

The pyramid of Mycerinus suffered much at the
hands of certain Muhammadan rulers of Egypt, and we
are told that Al-Mainun set to work seriously to pull
down all the great pyramids. Idrisi, who wrote about
a.d. 1226, states that a few years ago the Ked Pyramid,
i.e., that of Men-kau-Ea, was opened on the north side.
After passiDg through various passages, a room was
reached wherein was found a long blue vessel [i.e., a
sarcophagus], quite empty. The opening into this
pyramid was effected by people who were in search of
treasure ; they worked at it with axes for six months,
and they were in great numbers. They found in this
basin, after they had broken the covering of it, the de-
cayed remains of a man, but no treasures, excepting
some golden tablets inscribed with characters of a
language which nobody could understand. 1 In con-
nection with the reign of Men-kau-Ea reference must
be made to some important work which seems to have
been carried out by the prince Heru-ta-ta-f on certain
chapters of the Book of the Dead; what this work was
cannot be exactly described, but it is said that this
prince " found " Chapter XXXb., and one of the ver-
sions of the LXIVth chapter, inscribed upon a block of
iron of the south which had been inlaid with lapis-
lazuli, when he was journeying about to make an
inspection of the temples. 2 In the texts of a sub-

1 Vyse, The Pyramids of Gizeh, vol. ii. pp. 71, 72.

2 See my Chapters of Coming Forth by Day (translation, pp. 80
and 119).

B.C. 3600] IN THE REIGN OF MYCERIN^S 63

sequent period references are made to Heru-tataf in
such a way that it is clear that he was a man of great
piety and learning, and it is very probable that the
chapters which were " found " by him were either
edited or partly re-written by him.

6. 4|s§ ( ^k _^_ ^ J SHEPSES - KxV - F, ZePepxepV?
a <c* V Jul " A

(Herodotus, Aav^).

According to the Tablet oi Abydos, Men-kau-Ea was
followed by Shepses-ka-f, but Manetho names one
Bicheris as his successor, and says that he reigned
twenty-two years ; Bicheris may be either a corruption
of the name Shepses-ka-f, or another name of the king,
but in any case it is perfectly certain from the evidence
of the monuments 1 that Shepses-ka-f followed Men-
kau-Ea in the rule of Egypt. According to Herodotus
(ii. 136), "after Mycerinus, ensued the raigne and
" dominion of Asychis, by whome (as the priests report)
" was consecrated to Yulcane a princely gallerie standyng
" to the East, very fayre and large, wrought with most
" curious and exquisite workemanship. For besides that
" it had on every side embossed the straunge and lively
" pictures of wilde beastes, it had in a manner all the
"graces and sumptuous ornaments that coulde be
" imagined to the beautifying of a worke. Howbeit,
" amiddest other his famous deedes, this purchased him

1 See de Rouge, Six Premieres Dynasties Egyptiennes, pp. 66, 73, 77.

64 tSe pyramid OF SHEPSESKAF [B.C. 3600

"the greatest dignitie, that perceyving the land to be
" oppressed with debt, and many creditours like to be
"indamaged by great losse, lie inacted foorthwith, that
" who so borrowed aught uppon credite, shoulde lay to
" pledge the dead body of his father, to be used at the
" discretion of the creditour, and to be buryed by him in
"what manner he woulde, for a pennaunce to all those
" that tooke any thing of loane ; providing moreover, that
" in case he refused to repay the debt, he should neyther
"be buryed in the tombe of his fathers, nor in any other
" sepulchre, neyther himselfe, nor the issue that should
" descend and spring of his body. This prince desiring
"to surpasse all that had been before him, left in
" memorie of himselfe an excellent pyre built all of clay,
"wherein was a stone set ingraven in these wordes:
" ' Compare me not to the rest of the pyres, which I
" ' surmount as farre as Iupiter excelleth the meaner
" ' gods, for searching the bottome of the river with
" ' a scoupe, looke what clay they brought up, the
" ' same they employed to the building of me in such
" ' forme and bignesse as you may beholde.' And this
" did Asychis imagine to advance the fame of him selfe
" to the time to come." l The pyramid here mentioned
was undoubtedly built of mud bricks, but that it is to be
identified with the Pyramid of Shepses-ka-f, which was

called " Qebh " I a A , 2 is very unlikely. During the

A B. R.'s Translation, fol. 108a,

2 See de Rouge, Six Premieres Dynasties Egyptiennes, p. 74,

B.C. 3600] THE CAREER OF PTAH-SHEPSES 65

reign of Shepses-ka-f the official Ptah-skepses flourished,
and on the walls of his tomb, which M. Mariette dis-
covered at Sakkara, are recorded a number of the
benefits which were showered by the king upon the man
who afterwards married his eldest daughter. He says *
that the king Men-kau-Ka and the king Shepses-ka-f
placed him among the royal children ; that he had access
to the palace and to the king's own apartments ; and that
he was more pleasing in the sight of the king than any
other child. When he had arrived at a marriageable
age, "His Majesty gave him [his] eldest royal daughter,
" Maat-kha, to be his wife, for he preferred her to be
" with him more than with any [other] man," and he was
more esteemed by the king than any other servant.
His Majesty also set him over all the secret works of
every kind whatsoever it pleased him to have carried
out, and he did his duty so well that he " made happy
" the heart of his lord every day." " His Majesty
" allowed him to bow down his head on his leg (or
" knee) in homage, and did not make him to bow down
" to the ground ; 2 and he entered into the boat of the
" gods at all the festivals of the gods, for he was
" beloved of his lord." In return for his devotion, he
was made " superintendent of the house of divine food " ;
" superintendent of the private apartments (or affairs) " ;

1 For the text see de Rouge, ojp. tit., p. 66 ff. ; and Mariette, Les
Mastabas, Paris, 1889, p. 113.

2 I.e., instead of making him to kneel on the ground, and touch
the earth with his forehead, the king accepted as his correct
homage the bowing of Ptah-shepses's head to the royal knee.

VOL. II. F

66 THE CAREER OF PTAH-SHEPSES [B.C. 3600

" chief of the crystal house " ; " servant of the god
Seker in his every seat " ; chief of the royal estate
which was set apart to supply offerings for the temple
of the god Seker ; " ur-kherp-hem and superintendent
of the Temple of Seker " ; " ur-kherp-hem in the double
sanctuary of the Aged One, the Temple of Ptah," etc.
Thus we see that Ptah-Shepses held a number of im-
portant offices in connection with the property and
worship of the gods, and the title of " ur-lcherp-hem"
i.e., " great chief of the hammer," shows that he was
the high priest of the Smith-God Ptah, and so played
the most prominent part in the performance of the cere-
monies which took place daily in the shrines of the gods
Seker and Ptah of Memphis, when their arks and boats
were lifted upon their sledges, and were drawn round
about the sanctuary at sunrise and sunset, probably in
imitation of the motions of the celestial bodies.

The Sasychis of Diodorus is probably to be identified,
like the Asychis of Herodotus, with Shepses-ka-f. In the
King List of Manetho, following the name Sebercheres,
whom we have identified with Shepses-ka-f, is the name
Thamphthis, @a/j,<j>dkj which has been identified with

that of the king I-em-hetep 4w ( ft ^ ^g ] ^v
Brugsch and Bouriant ; 1 neither the Tablet of Abydos
nor the Tablet of Sakkara mentions this king, and the
grounds for the proposed identification are insufficient.

1 Le Livre ties fiois, p. 6. Here also Sebercheres is identified
with Sebek-ka-Ra =f_^C) I © g§^ Li 1 ■

B.C. 3568]

( 6 7 )

CHAPTER III.

THE FIFTH DYNASTY. FEOM ELEPHANTINE.

1- W ( i P ^£_ J UsER-KA-F, Ovaepxeprjs.

<2>

Ari-MaIt, the
Horus name
of Userkaf.

The name of Userkaf follows that of
Shepses-ka-f on the Tablet of Abydos, and
there is no doubt that he represents the
Usercheres of Manetho, who began the Vth.
Dynasty, and who reigned twenty-eight
years ; this is proved by the inscription
of Sekhem-ka-Ra — which is quoted by
de Rouge, 1 — who says that he held office
under " Khaf-Ra, Men-kau-Ra, Shepses-ka-f, Userkaf,
" and Sahu-Ra." According to the Westcar 3 Papyrus,
king Userkaf was the high priest of the god Raof Annu,
or Heliopolis, and he seems to have had sufficient power
in the land to add the title " son of the Sun " to the
titles which the kings of Egypt had already adopted ;
from the Vth Dynasty onwards the second cartouche
of a king always contained the name which he bore

1 Six Premieres Dynasties, p. 77.

2 See Erraan, op. cit., plate ix. ff .

68

GROWTH OF RA WORSHIP

[B.C. 3533

as the son of Ra. In the reign of Userkaf the worship
of the Sun-god Ra increased greatly, and his cult as
understood and proclaimed by the priests of lieliopolis
became dominant in the land. The inscriptions of the
period mention under various names certain shrines of
the god Ra, and such names indicate either the dwelling-
place of the god, or some spot which is favoured by
him ; the determinative in each case is either an
obelisk , or a truncated pyramid £a , which shows
that such buildings were dedicated to the worship of
Ra. 1 Userkaf built a pyramid to which he gave the
name "Ab-ast"/^8 [ r [ A , and we may assume that

its remains will be found at Abusir, or Busiris, where
the pyramids of Sahu-Ra and Ra-en-user, kings of the
same dynasty, have already been found.

el\\l

Sahu-Ra, Zecpp/]?.

m

Sahu-Ra was the successor of Userkaf,
and he is, no doubt, to be identified with the
Sephres of Manetho, who reigned thirteen
years ; a relief sculptured on the rocks in
the Wadi Maghara represents this king in
the traditional attitude of clubbing; a native

neb-khIu, the of Sinai, but this does not necessarily

Horus name of J

sahu-Ra. imply that he led an expedition into the
Peninsula. He built a pyramid called " Kha-ba,"

1 See Aegyptisclie Zeitsclirift, 1889, p. 111.

B.C. 3533] PYRAMID OF SAHU-RA 69

S '^^ A j the remains of which have been found
in the most northerly of the three largest pyramids
at Abnsir; there is no reason to doubt this identi-
fication, for the name of the king is traced in red, as
Lepsius pcinted ont, 1 on several of the blocks there.
Sahu-Ea's pyramid is now about 1 20 feet high, and the
length of each side at the base is about 220 feet. The
Westcar Papyrus 2 contains an interesting legend of the
birth of Sahu-Ea and of his predecessor Userkaf, and
his successor Kakaa. It seems that king Khufu or-
dered a magician at his court called Tetta, ft ft I 3 W ?
to bring him certain writings from Heliopolis, but Tetta
refused, saying that the "eldest of the three children who
"were in the womb of Eut-Tetet, <= ^^\ I ^^ J) ,
" should bring them." The king asked who Eut-Tetet
was, and the sage told him that she was the wife of a
priest of the god Ea of Sakhabu uh \ &-& J(V © 3

who was about to bring forth three children of the god
Ea, who had promised to bestow upon them honours and
dignities of all kinds in the land, and had decreed that
the eldest of the three was to be the high-priest of
Memphis ; and when the king heard this he was very
sad. And when the days of the wife of the priest
Ea-user were fulfilled, and birth-pains were coming upon

1 Lepsius, DenhnaUr, ii. plate 40.
See Erman, op. cit,, p. 11 ff.

70 THE BIRTH OF THREE KINGS [B.C. 3533

her, the god Ba of Sakhabu sent Isis, Nephthys,
Meskhenet, Heqet, and Khnemn to assist her in bring-
ing forth her children, who in return would build
temples in their honour and provide their altars with
meat and drink offerings in abundance. The goddesses,
having disguised themselves as dancing women, went
with the god Khnemu to the house of Ba-user, who
straightway brought them into the room where his wife
was ; soon after this But-Tetet gave birth to three
male children, whom Isis named Userkaf, Sahu-Ba, and
Kakaa, and for whom Meskhenet prophesied sovereignty
over the entire land. The goddesses then came out of
the birth-chamber and announced to Ba-user that three
children had been born to him, and when he heard this
news he wished to make a gift of barley to them ; the
goddesses accepted the gift, and departed, but finally
they brought the barley back, and having placed it in
royal diadems, presumably for the three children, they
caused it to be stored in a secret chamber of Ba-user's
house. Whensoever this chamber was visited after this
time, sounds of singing, and music, and dancing were
heard to come forth from it. The exact interpretation
which is to be put on this legend is not clear, but
the legend itself is very old, and it may well date
from the time of the Vth Dynasty ; it has value
chiefly from the point of view of comparative folk-
lore, but it is also important as indicating the order
of the succession of the first three kings of the Vth
Dynasty.

B.C. 3466] KAKAA, SHEPSES-KA-RA, NEFER-F-RA Jl

3. M ( u u y KakaA -

As the name of this king follows that of Sahu-Ra in
the Tablet of Abydos, and also in the Westcar Papyrus,
it is placed in that order here ; in the Tablet of
Sakkara the two names which follow that of Sahu-Ra

are

T3S ( O I JS2> - Lll Ra-nefer-ari-ka.

^$) (o % P P LiJ Ra-shepses-ka.

It has been suggested that Kakaa is the " son-of-the-
Snn" name of Ra-nefer-ari-ka or of Ra-shepses-ka,
but there is no satisfactory evidence to support either
view. At this juncture Manetho also fails us, for he gives
the names of kings Nephercheres, Sisires, and Choires
as the successors of Sahu-Ra, and says that they reigned
twenty, seven, and twenty years respectively ; it is pos-
sible that Nephercheres is the equivalent of the Egyptian
name Ra-nefer-ari-ka, which is given by the Tablet of
Sakkara. The pyramid which this last named king-
built, probably at Abusir, was called " Ba " <fe^ A .

4w (o J H — 1 ^ a ~ nefer - f -

This name follows that of Kakaa in the Tablet of
Abydos, and may be the equivalent of the king called

72

THE PYRAMID OF USER-EN-RA [B.C. 3433

tss (o q 1] Ra-kha-nefer in tlie Tablet of Sak-

kara ; the name Heru-a-ka-u f ^ (j \J ^k J wliicli

occurs in the tombs of the Vth Dynasty x may be the
" son-of-the-Sun " name of Ra-nefer-f or of Ra-kha-
nefer, if this king ever -existed. Ra-nefer-f bnilt a
pyramid, presumably at Abusir, which was called
" Neter-baiu " 1 <=> ^|L A .

J

o

5. Mf ° 1(1<=>] ^2 ffl^l RA- EN -USER,

son of the Sun, An, 'PaOovprj?.

Ra-en-user, the Rathures of Manetho,
who is said to have reigned forty- four years,
is also styled in the inscriptions, " Lord of

the shrines of Nekhebet and Uatchet " j^w ,
" and the seat of the heart of the divine

j*. _5^ i and thus,

ofRa-en-nser. w ith his Horus name, was the possessor

of five names. He built a pyramid 2 which he called

" Men-ast " r r r A , and which has been iden-

A*/WV\ cLI cjj dJ E3

titled with the middle one of the three large pyramids
which are found at Abusir ; he also waged war in the

See Wiedemann, Aegyptische Geschichte, pp. 198, 199.
- His name is also found upon a pyramid at Rikka ; see Wiede-
mann, op. cit., p. 199.

AST-AB-TAUi,

the Horus name

B.C. 3533]

THE MASTABA OF THI

73

Peninsula of Sinai, for a relief on the rocks in the Wadi

Maghara represents him in the act of clubbing a native,

and in the text he is called the subduer of all the double

o r^-^N-o ^37

land of Menthu

It must, how

ever, be remembered that
by this time the Egyp-
tians had obtained such
a sure footing in the
Peninsula that almost as
a matter of course the
courtiers of each king-
would take care that a
rock relief should be cut
in the Wadi Maghara,
in which he would be
represented in the tradi-
tional attitude of the
conqueror of the country.
During the reign of
this king there flourished
the high official Thi

s=> ( ( , who built for

himself one of the most
interesting of the mas-

taba tombs which have Usr-en-Ba, King of Egypt,

been spared to us ; he was a close personal friend of the
king, and he held a number of the most important civil

1 See Lepsius,' Denl-mdler, Bl, 152a.

74 THE MASTABA OF THI [B.C. 3433

and religious offices. He was the chief reader, and
overseer of the priests and scribes, and overseer of the
sacred building and domains which the king had dedi-
cated to the service of Ra, and president of the palace,
and superintendent of the royal works, and director of
the private business of the king in every place, and
secretary to his majesty, and overseer of the pyramids
of Ka-nefer-ari-ka, and Ra-en-user, etc. The inscriptions
in his tomb mention neither his father nor his mother,
and there is nothing in them which indicates that he
was of noble birth; his wife, however, was a "royal
kinswoman " called Nefer-hetep-s, and she held the
office of priestess to the goddesses Hathor and Neith.
Whether Thi attained to the various important offices
which he held by merit or through the influence of his
wife cannot be said. 1 The chief features of interest in
the tomb of Thi are the bas-reliefs, which are, probably,
the best of their class which have ever been seen ; the
figures of human beings are depicted according to the
conventional canon which was then in use, and the
work is excellent, but the figures of the animals and
inanimate objects are wholly admirable. The scenes
depict the feeding and fattening of birds, the reaping
and winnowing of corn, the ploughing of the land and
the sowing of seed, the treading in of the corn by flat-
horned rams, carpenters at work sawing planks and
making articles of furniture, etc., boat builders building
a boat, men lopping branches off trees, etc. It is in-

1 De Eonge, op. cit., p. 96.

B.C. 3500]

THE MINES OF SINAI

75

teresting to note that in one relief a dwarf leading an
ape is represented, and in another the emptying of fish
out of a wicker basket in which they have been caught ;
the basket in form closely resembles the bottle-shaped
reed basket which the natives who live along the banks
of the Tigris employ for catching fish to this day.

a £^> V

^Y J MEN-KAU-HERU, Mevxepfc.

Q

MEN-KHAr,

the Horus name
of Heru-men-kau

Heru-men-kau, the Menkheres of
Manetho, is said to have reigned nine
years ; he carried on the mining works
in the Peninsula of Sinai, where a
mutilated relief containing his Horus
and other names is found. He built a
pyramid, presumably at Abusir, which

iiJA'

was called "Neter-ast"i

but it has not, as yet, been identified. The Museum of
the Louvre possesses a bas-relief wherein we have what
appears to be a fine portrait figure of the king Heru-
men-kau ; it is a beautiful piece of work. The slab was
found by Mariette in a wall of the Serapeum at Sakkara,
where it was probably taken from the funeral chapel
which was built in front of the pyramid of the king.
Doubts l have been cast upon the antiquity of the relief,

Krall, Grundriss der AUorientaUsclien GescTii elite, p. 21,

7 6

PORTRAIT OF MEN-KAU-HERU [B.C. 3400

but, as said de Kongo, who also gave a reproduction T of
the monument, the surface of the stone proves that it
was exposed to the action of the atmosphere for a very
long time before it was buried in the wall of the Tomb
of Apis. The king is represented as a young man, and

he wears a helmet, the
front of which is orna-
mented with the uraeus,
the symbol of royalty. In
the right hand he grasps
the emblem of " life " -r*
and the "Kherp" sceptre,
and in the left he holds a
long staff; attached to his
costume is the tail of some
animal, the custom of wear-
ing which as a part of the
dress was introduced into
Egypt in predynastic times.
Above his head is the
vulture goddess Nekhebet,
" the lady of heaven, and
mistress of the two lands/'
who holds in one claw the
symbol of a ring Q, shen, typical ol the sovereignty
which she has bestowed upon the king, and other
emblems ; her wings are stretched out over him, and
indicate that he is under the protection of the goddess.

1 Six Premieres Dynasties Egyptiennes, p. 99, and plate vi.

Men-kau-heru, King of Egypt.

B.C. 3368]

THE WADI HAMMAMAT

77

tlie Sun, Assa, TW^ep???.

J Ea-tet-ka, son of

Q

Eatetka, i.e., Tet-ka-Ea, Assa, the
Tancheres of Manetho, is said to have
reigned forty-four years ; the Tablet of
Sakkara gives the prenomen of this king

as Ea-Maat-ka 4^ Cq (5 |J 1 , but the

fact that Eatetka and Assa represent one
tetkhi'u, the and the same king was discovered so far
of Assa. back as the time of Champollion-Figeac. 1
In the fourth year of his reign Assa caused his Horus
and other names to be inscribed in the traditional
manner upon the rocks in the Wadi Magkara, and his
cartouche is also found on the rocks in the Wadi

Hammamat, i.e., the "Eehenu Valley," (J ^

of the hieroglyphic inscriptions ; thus the working of
the copper and turquoise mines in the Peninsula of Sinai
was continued, and under Assa the Egyptians apparently
opened new quarries from which to obtain hard stone
suitable for statues and certain parts of buildings in
general. The Wadi Hammamat formed a very ancient
highway between Kena in Upper Egypt and Kuser on
the Eed Sea, and it is probable that from time im-
memorial all the merchandise and traffic from the East

1 Egypte Ancienne, p. 281 ; Wiedemann, op. cit., p. 200.

yS ASSA SENDS BA-UR-TET TO [B.C. 3366

entered Egypt by this route ; the quarries there contain
large numbers of inscriptions which were cut in the
rocks by the officials who were sent there to carry on
work for the Pharaohs, and, as these frequently mention
the names of their royal masters, we see that the
quarries in the Valley were worked from the Vth
Dynasty to the time of the Persians. Hard sandstone
and granite were the principal kinds of stone quarried
there.

Assa built a pyramid, presumably at Abusir,

and called it "Nefer," T A , i.e., the "Beautiful."

According to the inscription of Her-khuf, which was
discovered in a tomb of the Vlth Dynasty at Aswan,
and which is now in the Museum at Cairo, 1 king Assa
sent one of his high officials to the land of the ghosts,

=^= ^b* • % J J J, to bring back a pygmy, "tenk,"
^ J) 7 J ' ^ iat ^ e mi S nt dance before him and amuse him;
the official was called Ba-ur-Tet ^~^ ^^ u q£ ,

and it seems that he made his way into the pygmy
country by way of Nubia, and having reached Punt,
rj .few } ] ie secured the pygmy and returned to

AA/VAAA P^^l

Egypt, where the king bestowed high honours upon
him. These facts are of considerable importance, for
they show that in the Vth and Vlth Dynasties the
kings of Egypt were in the habit of sending to the

1 See Vol. I., p. 197.

B.C. 3366] CENTRAL AFRICA FOR A PYGMY 79

South for pygmies, and it would seem that they only
followed the example set by their predecessors in the 1st
Dynasty, for in the small chambers close to the tomb
of Semempses the skeletons of two dwarfs, and two
stelae on which dwarfs were depicted, were found. 1 It
is possible that the country of the pygmies extended
much further to the north than it does now, but even so
a journey from Memphis to the great Central African
Lakes, if not further, must have been a hazardous
undertaking, and he who performed it successfully well
deserved any honour that could be bestowed upon him.
Among the famous men who flourished in the reign of
Assa must be specially mentioned the " governor of the
town," Ptah-hetep, but whether he is to be identified
with the Ptah-hetep whose mastaba tomb still exists at
Sakkara is not certain. Ptah-hetep, the contemporary
of Assa, wrote a number of " Precepts," which are made
known to us in the famous papyrus which was purchased
and published by Prisse d'Avennes, 2 and which is now
preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale. This papyrus
is not older than the Xllth Dynasty, but it is clear
from the archaic forms and words which occur in the
chapters that they belong to a far older period, and that
the composition must have remained practically un-
touched by the copyist ; this fact is proved by the last
word of the copy, in which the scribe says, " It hath

1 See Petrie, Royal Tombs, p. 13.

2 Facsimile d'un papyrus Egyptien en caracteres hieratiques, trouve
a Thebes, Paris, 1847.

8o

THE PRECEPTS OF PTAH-HETEP [B.C. 3333

" gene out (i.e., Here endeth the document) from the
" beginning to the end thereof, according as it was found
"in the writing." 1 These "Precepts" show that the
Egyptians in the Vth Dynasty possessed moral ideas ot
a very high character, and that their conceptions of truth,
justice, duty, humanity, and of a man's duty towards
his neighbour, were not inferior to the counsels on the
same subjects which are to be found in the Books of
Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus. A few extracts from them
will be found in the next chapter.

8 - M> f ^ ft ill Unas "Owos.

Unas, the Onnos of Manetho, and the
last king of the Vth Dynasty, is said to
have reigned thirty-three years ; he was the
immediate successor of Assa, and de Eouge
thought that he was associated with this
king in the rule of the kingdom. He is
said to have built a temple to Hathor at
Memphis, and it seems that he carried on
quarrying operations in the Wadi Hammamat ; he
built a pyramid at Sakkara which he called " Tet

Uatch-tatji,

the Horus name

of Unas.

J\

D

_S

_£S>

H

\\

4i )

B.C. 3333] THE PYRAMID OF UNAS Si

Ast" u r f r A . It was thought for some time

by Mariette that this pyramid was represented by the
ruins at Dahshur to which the name Mastabat al-
Fir'aun, "Pharaoh's Bench (or Bed)," has been given
by the Arabs, because the name of Unas was found
on some of the blocks of stone there. This, however,
was disproved by the results of the excavations made
at Sakkara by M. Maspero in 1881, when it was
found that Unas was buried in the pyramid which is
numbered IV. on the plan of Perring, and XXXV. on
the plan of Lepsius. The pyramid of Unas stands a
little to the south-west of the great Step Pyramid, and
was broken into and pillaged in the IXth century of
our era; when complete it was about sixty-two feet
high, and the length of each side at the base was about
220 feet. The slanting corridor, by which the pyramid
is entered, is about 23 feet long, and ends in an empty,
uninscribed chamber ; a corridor about 19 feet long, with
sides of fine calcareous stone, leads out of it to a passage
about 27 feet long, built of granite, which was closed
by means of three massive blocks of granite which slid
down in grooves after the manner of portcullises, and out
of this a short passage, about five feet long, the sides of
which are covered with inscriptions, leads into the ante-
chamber. On the left hand is a short passage leading
to the serdab, and on the right is another short passage
which leads to the mummy chamber. Many of the
walls of these chambers and corridors are covered with
vertical lines of hieroglyphics inlaid with green paste.
vol. u. G

82

THE PYRAMID OF UNAS

[B.C. 3333

The sarcophagus is of black basalt, and its cover was
wrenched off with violence by the thieves who broke
into the tomb. The mummy had been broken in pieces,
and all that remained of it were the right arm, a tibia,
fragments of the skull, and the ribs, and some of the

Tomb of Unas— Section.

linen bandages ; these are all preserved in the Museum
at Cairo. The accompanying plan, copied from that of
M. Maspero, will give an idea of the general arrange-
ment of the chambers and corridors of the pyramid,

Tomb of Unas — Ground Plan.

which, it seems, formed the model in almost every
respect, except for the selections of texts l inscribed on

1 Transcripts of all these texts, printed in hieroglyphic type,
were given with French translations by M. Maspero in the third
and following volumes of Recueil de Travanx, Paris, 1882.

B.C. 3333] THE PYRAMID OF UNAS 83

the walls, for the pyramids of the immediate successors
of Unas. As a building the pyramid of Unas is
ot comparatively little interest, and it is chiefly
of value as illustrating the decadence of the art ot
building such a monument ; but viewed as a repository
for the inscriptions which line many parts of the
walls of its chambers and corridors, its value is ines-
timable. The inscriptions are the oldest Egyptian
religious texts known to us, and as they illustrate better
than anything else the views about the future life
which were current at Annu, or Heliopolis, at that
period, a few extracts from them are here given : —
I. " Behold Unas cometh, behold Unas cometh, behold
" Unas cometh forth ! And if Unas cometh not of his
" own accord, thy message having come to him shall
"bring him. Unas maketh his way to his abode, and
" the Cow goddess of the Great Lake boweth down before
"him; none shall ever take away his food from the
" Great Boat, and he shall not be repulsed at the White
" House of the Great Ones by the region Meskhent on the
" border of the sky. Behold, Unas hath arrived at the
" height of heaven, and he seeth his body in the evening
" boat of the Sun, and he toileth therein ; he hath
"satisfied the uraeus in the morning boat of the
" Sun, and hath washed it. The Henmemet beings
" have borne testimony concerning him, the winds and
" storms of heaven have strengthened him, and they
" introduce him to Ka. make the two horizons of
"heaven to embrace Unas, so that he may go forth

84 THE LADDER OF OSIRIS [B.C. 3333

" toward the horizon with Ra. make the two horizons
" of heaven to embrace Unas, so that he may go forth
" towards the horizon along with Heru-khuti (Har-
" machis) and Ra. Unas is happily united to his double
" (ka), his panther skin and his grain bag are upon him,
" his whip is in his hand, his sceptre is in his grasp.
" They bring to him the four Spirits who dwell in the
" tresses of Horus, who stand on the eastern side of
"heaven, and who are glorious by reason of their
" sceptres, and they announce the fair name of Unas to
" Ra, and they make him to escape from Neheb-kau,
" and the soul of Unas liveth in the north of the
" Sekhet- Aaru, and he saileth about in the Lake 'of
"Kha. Whilst Unas saileth towards the east side
" of the horizon, whilst he saileth, saileth towards the
" east side of heaven, his sister, the star Sothis, giveth
" him birth in the Underworld."

IT. " He who setteth up the Ladder for Osiris is Ra,
" and he who setteth up the ladder is Horus for his father
" Osiris when he goeth forth to his soul; Ra is on one
" side and Horus is on the other, and Unas is between
" them, being indeed the god of holy dwelling-places
" coming forth from the sanctuary. Unas standeth up
"and is Horus; Unas sitteth down and is Set; Ra
" receiveth him, soul in heaven and body in earth.
" Those who are happy and who see [Unas], and those
" who are content and who contemplate [him] are the
"gods. If this god come forth towards heaven, Unas
" also shall come forth towards heaven ; and he shall

B.C. 3333] UNAS KILLS THE GODS 85

" have his souls with him, and his books shall be upon
"both sides of him, and his inscribed amulets shall be
" upon his feet, and the god Seb shall do for him what
"hath been done for himself. The divine souls of the
" city of Pe, and the divine souls of the city of Nekhen
"shall come unto him, along with the gods of heaven
" and the gods of earth, and they shall lift Unas up upon
"their hands. Come forth, then, Unas, to heaven, and
" enter therein in thy name of ' Ladder.' Heaven hath
" been given unto Unas, and earth hath been given unto
"him ; this is the decree which Tern hath issued to Seb,
" and the domains of Horus, and the domains of Set, and
" the Sekhet-Aaru with their harvests adore thee in thy
" name of Khonsu-Sept."

The following passage from the pyramid of Unas
contains a myth of the hunting and devouring of
the gods by the deceased in the Underworld which is
probably based upon views and beliefs of a much
earlier period, and it is intended to depict in words the
terror which all creation would feel when it saw the
king rise up in the life beyond the grave in the form
of a god who devours "his fathers and mothers,"
and both men and gods. The passage runs ] : —
" The heavens drop water, the stars throb, the
" archers go round about, the bones of the Akeru
" gods tremble, and those who are in bondage to them
"take to flight when they see Unas rise up as a soul, in

1 For the text see Recite il de Travaux, vol. iv. p. 59, vol. v. p. 50.

86 UNAS COOKS AND EATS [B.C. 3333

" the form of the god who liveth upon his fathers and
" who maketh food of his mothers. Unas is the lord of
"wisdom, and his mother knoweth not his name. The
" gifts of Unas are in heaven, and he hath become
"mighty in the horizon like unto Temu, the father that
" gave him birth, and after Temu gave him birth Unas
" became stronger than his father. The doubles of Unas
" are behind him, the sole of his foot is beneath his feet,
" his gods are over him, his uraei are seated upon his
" brow, the serpent guides of Unas are in front of him,
"and the spirit of the flame looketh upon [his] soul.
"The powers of Urnis protect him; Unas is a bull in
" heaven, he directeth his steps whither he wills, he liveth
" upon the form which each god taketh upon himself,
" and he eateth the flesh of those who come to fill their
" bellies with the words of power in the Lake of Fire.
" Unas is equipped with power against the shining
" spirits thereof, and he riseth up in the form of the
"mighty one, the lord of those who dwell in power.
" Unas hath taken his seat with his side turned towards
" Seb. Unas hath weighed his words with the hidden
"god (?) who hath no name, on the day of hacking in
" pieces the firstborn. Unas is the lord of offerings, the
" untier of the knot, and he himself maketh abundant
" the offerings of meat and drink. Unas devoureth men
" and liveth upon the gods, he is the lord to whom offer-
"ings are brought, and he counteth the lists thereof.
" He that cutteth off hairy scalps and dwelleth in the
"fields hath netted the gods in a snare; he that

B.C. 3333] HIS GODS IN THE UNDERWORLD 87

" arrange tli his head hath considered them good for
" Unas and hath driven them unto him; and the cord-
" master hath bound them for slaughter. Khonsu the
"slayer of [his] lords hath cut their throats and drawn
" out their inward parts, for it was he whom Unas sent
" to drive them in ; and Shesem hath cut them in pieces
" and boiled their members in his blazing cauldrons.
" Unas hath eaten their words of power, and he hath
" swallowed their spirits ; the great ones among them
" serve for his meal at daybreak, the lesser serve for his
" meal at eventide, and the least among them serve for his
" meal in the night. The old gods and the old goddesses
" become fuel for his furnace. The mighty ones in
" heaven shoot out fire under the cauldrons which are
" heaped up with the haunches of the firstborn ; and he
" that maketh those who live in heaven to revolve round
"Unas hath shot into the cauldrons the haunches of
"their women; he hath gone round about the two
"heavens in their entirety, and he hath gone round
" about the two banks of the celestial Nile. Unas is the
"great Form, the Form of forms, and Unas is the chief
" of the gods in visible forms. Whatsoever he hath
" found upon his path he hath eaten forthwith, and the
" word of power of Unas is before that of all the sahu
" (i.e., spiritual bodies) who dwell in the horizon. Unas
" is the firstborn of the firstborn. Unas hath gone round
" thousands ; and he hath offered oblations unto hundreds ;
" he hath manifested his might as the great Form through
" Sah (Orion) [who is greater] than the gods. Unas

88 UNAS OBTAINS EVERLASTING LIFE [B.C. 3333

repeateth his rising in heaven, and he is the crown of
the lord of the horizon. He hath reckoned up the
bandlets and the arm-rings, he hath taken possession
of the hearts of the gods. Unas hath eaten the red
crown, and he hath swallowed the white crown ; the
food of Unas is the inward parts, and his meat is those
who live upon the words of power in their hearts. Be-
hold, Unas eateth of that which the red crown sendeth
forth, he increaseth, and the magical charms of the
gods are in his belly ; that which belongeth to him is
not turned back from him. Unas hath eaten the whole
of the knowledge of every god, and the period of his
life is eternity, and the duration of his existence is
everlastingness, in whatsoever form he wisheth to take ;
in whatsoever form he hateth he shall not labour in
the horizon for ever and ever and ever. The soul of
the gods is in Unas, their spirits are with Unas, and
the offerings made unto him are more than those
made unto the gods. The fire of Unas is in their
bones, for their soul is with Unas, and their shades
are with those who belong unto them. Unas hath
been with the two hidden Kha gods who are . . . . ;
the seat of the heart of Unas is among those who
live upon the earth for ever and ever."

B.C. 3266]

( 39 )

CHAPTEK IV.

^D

THE SIXTH DYNASTY. FEOM MEMPHIS.

1. M [g] Teta, >O06rp.

Teta, the first king of the Vltli Dynasty,
the Othoes of Manetho, is said to have
reigned thirty years, and to have been
slain by his spearmen (Cory, op. cit., p.
104) ; of the details of his life nothing
is known, and it seems as if he was neither
SE ?he T HoruI 1 ' a warrior nor a great builder. He built
a pyramid at Sakkara which he called

" Tet-Ast " jr r r r A , and which in many respects

resembles that of Unas, which has been already
described. The pyramid of Teta is called by the Arabs
the " Prison Pyramid," because it stands in the neigh-
bourhood of some ancient ruins which local tradition

1 See the vase in the British Museum (No. 29,204), where we
have r —

^ D

sgDjaj

go

BULL-WEIGHT OF TETA

[B.C. 3266

declares are the ruins of the prison of the patriarch
Joseph. It was broken into in ancient days by
plunderers, who succeeded in forcing their way into
its innermost parts, and finding nothing of value in the
chambers, they devoted their energies to smashing the
walls, in which they appear to have thought that
treasure was concealed. The pyramid was excavated

Bull weight inscribed with the names of Teta.
British Museum, No. 29,211.

in 1881, and paper squeezes of the inscriptions were
made by MM. E. Brugsch and Bouriant. 1 The hiero-
glyphics are smaller than those in the Pyramid of
Unas, but larger than almost all those which are found
in the Pyramid of Pepi I. The grayish basalt sarco-

1 Becaeil de Travaux, torn, v. p. 2.

B.C. 3266] INSCRIPTIONS INSIDE TETA'S PYRAMID gi

phagus of the king had been broken into at one corner,
and the mummy was dragged ont through the hole
made there ; the only remains of Teta found by M.
Maspero consisted of an arm and shoulder, which
seemed to show that the body had not been as carefully
preserved as that of Unas.

The religious compositions which are inscribed on
the walls in Teta's tomb are of great interest and
importance as illustrating the views held by the
Egyptians concerning the future life, and as specimens
of their contents the following extracts are given : —
"Ye have taken Teta to you, ye gods, and he eateth
" what ye eat, he drinketh what ye drink, he liveth
" upon that upon which ye live, he sitteth down as ye
" sit, he is mighty with the might which is yours, he
" saileth about even as ye sail about ; the house of Teta
"is a net in the Sekhet-Aaru, he hath streams of run-
" ning water in Sekhet-hetep, the offerings of Teta are
" with you. ye gods, the water of Teta is as wine,
" even as [is that of] Ka, Teta revolveth in heaven like
"Ea, and he goeth round about the sky like Thoth
" (line 59 ff.). The two doors of heaven are opened for
"thee, Teta, for thou hast raised up thy head for
" thy bones, and thou hast raised up thy bones for thy
" head. Thou hast opened the two doors of heaven,
"thou hast drawn back the great bolts, thou hast re-
" moved the seal of the great door, and, with a face
" like that of a jackal and a body like that of a fierce
" lion, thou hast taken thy seat upon thy throne, and

92 RELIGIOUS INSCRIPTIONS INSIDE [B.C. 3266

thou criest to the Spirits, ' Come to nie ! Come to
' me ! Come to Horus, who hath avenged his father,
' for it is Teta who will lead thee in.' Thou puttest
thy hand upon the earth, and with thine arm thou
doest battle in the Great Domain, and thou revolvest
there among the Spirits, and thou standest up like
Horus. Hail, Osiris Teta, Horus hath come to
embrace thee with his arms, and he hath made Thoth
to drive away for thee in defeat the followers of Set,
and he hath taken them captive on thy behalf, and
he hath repulsed the heart of Set, for he is stronger
than Set ; and now, thou art come forth before him,
and Seb hath watched thy journey, and he hath set
thee in thy place and hath led unto thee thy two
sisters Isis and Nephthys. Horus hath united thee
unto the gods, and they show themselves as brothers
unto thee in thy name ' Sent,' and they do not repulse
thee in thy name ' Atert.' He hath granted that the
gods shall guard thee, and Seb hath set his sandal
upon the head of thine enemy. Thou hast driven back
[the enemy], thy son Horus hath smitten him, and he
hath plucked out his own Eye and given it unto thee
in order that thou mayest be strong thereby, and that
thou mayest gain the mastery thereby among the
Spirits. Horus hath permitted thee to hack thine
enemy in pieces with this [Eye], he smiteth down
thine enemy with it, for Horus is stronger than he is,
and he passeth judgment upon his father who is in
thee in thy name ' He whose father is stronger than

B.C. 3266] THE PYRAMID OF TETA 93

" 'heaven.' The goddess Nut hath made thee to be a
" god unto Set in thy name of ' God,' and thy mother
" Nut hath spread out her two arms over thee in her
" name of ' Coverer of heaven.' Horus hath smitten
" Set, and he hath cast him down beneath thee, and
"he beareth thee up and is a mighty one beneath
" thee, inasmuch as he is the great one of the earth
"which he ordereth in thy name of Tatcheser-ta.
"Horns hath granted that Set shall be judged in his
"heart in his house with thee, and he hath granted
" that thou shalt smite him with thy hand whensoever
"he doeth battle with thee. Hail, Osiris Teta, Horus
"hath avenged thee, and he hath caused his double
" which is in thee [to make] thee to rest in thy name
"of Ka-hetep (line 156 ff.). Nu hath adjudged Teta
"to the god Tern, and Peka hath adjudged Teta to
" Shu. He granteth that the two doors of heaven
" shall be opened, and he hath decreed that Teta shall
"be among men without name; but behold, thou hast
"grasped Teta by the hand, and thou hast drawn him
"to heaven so that he may never die upon earth among
"men (line 198 ff.). This Teta is Osiris and he hath
" motion, this Teta hath detestation of the earth and he
" will not enter into Seb. This Teta hath broken for
" ever his sleep in his dwelling which is upon earth.
" The bones of Teta flourish, and obstacles to him are
" destroyed, for he is purified with the Eye of Horus.
" The obstacles which he encountered are beaten down
"by Isis and Nephthys, and Teta hath cast to the earth

94 USER-KA-RA AND HIS PYRAMID [B.C. 3266

" liis seed in Kes. The sister of this Teta, the lady of
" the city of Pe, bewaileth him, and the two nurses who
" created Osiris also created him; Teta is in heaven like
" Shu and Ea (line 271 if.). Eise up, Teta, and lift up
" thy legs, most mighty one, to go and seat thyself
" among the gods, and do thou that which Osiris hath
"done in the House of the Prince which is in Annu ;
" thou hast received thy spiritual body (sdh), and none
" shall set bounds to thy foot in heaven, and none
"shall repulse thee on earth. The spirits who are the
"children of Nut, whom Nephthys hath suckled, have
" gathered together to thee, thou standest up upon thy
"strength, and thou doest that which thou must do for
" thy spirit in the presence of all the spirits. Thou goest
" to the city of Pe, thou art glorified, and returnest ;
"thou goest to the city of Nekhen, thou art glorified,
" and returnest. Thou doest that which Osiris did, and
" behold, this most mighty Spirit Teta is upon his
"throne and standeth up, being provided [with all
" things] like the goddess Sam-ur. None shall repulse
"thee in any place wherein thou wouldst enter, and
" none shall set bounds to thy foot concerning any
" place wherein it pleaseth thee to be."

2. H^| C Q -] P Lj] Ea-user-ka.

Of Ea-user-ka, whose name follows that of Teta in
the Tablet of Abydos, nothing is known, and in Mane-

B.C. 3233]

PEPI I. MERI-RA

95

tho's list no name occurs which can be its equivalent ;
the name which follows that of Teta in the Tablet of
Sakkara is that of the king of the South and North, Ati

yss ffl^ 00 IL aR d many Egyptologists have decided
to identify him with Ea-user-ka, and some would make
him the first king of the Vlth Dynasty. An inscription
in the Wiidi Hammamat published by Lepsius 1 says

that an official called Ptah-neku, x \

came

there in the first year of the reign of Ati to fetch stone
for building the royal pyramid, which was called " Ati-
baiu," (I) o |]:(| | *y&& A, but other details of this

king's rule are unknown.

3- M (4J3i ^ Colt] Ra-meki, son of the
Sun, Pepi, $/o?.

Meri-Ea, or Pepi I., the Phios of
Manetho, who is said to have reigned
fifty-three years, in addition to his other
titles adopted those of "Lord of the shrines
of the cities of Nekhebet and Uatchet,"
i.e., king of the South and North, and

"three -fold hawk of gold" ^^^

Pepi seems to have made his rule over
Egypt of a very effective character, and judging

1 Lepsius, Denlcmaler, ii. 115 f. j and see de Rouge, op. tit., p. 149.

Meri-tatji,

the Horus name

of Pepi I.

9 6

CONQUEST OF THE MENTHU [B.C. 3233

by the number of places wherein his names are
found, he must have been an energetic and capable
ruler. He worked the turquoise mines in the Wadi
Maghara, and the inscriptions indicate that he found
it necessary to put down with a strong hand a con-
federation of the tribes of the Sinaitic Peninsula who

Alabaster vase inscribed with the names and titles of Pepi I.
British Museum, No. 22,559.

/vww\

are described collectively as " Menthu '

In a relief on the rocks we see the king clubbing a
representative of these peoples in the presence of the
winged disk, and above him are his titles with the addi-
tional appellations of " Beautiful god " and " Lord of

B.C. 3233] COPPER STATUE OF PEPI I. 97

the two lands." 1 2 Strictly speaking, the invasions of the
Peninsula of Sinai by the Egyptians were undertaken at
this period more for the purposes of trade than for the
extension of the boundaries of the Egyptian Empire.
In the Wadi Hammamat the king's agents were very
active, and numerous inscriptions there indicate that
many quarries were worked there during his reign. The
granite quarries near Aswan, and further up in the First
Cataract, were also worked by him, and it is probable
that the granite statues, etc., which were set up during
his reign at Tanis were hewn in them. In short, the
reign of Pepi was a reign of industrial progress, and
although he did not leave behind him a mighty pyramid
like Khufu to prove to posterity that he was a great
builder, his reign was one which left a deep mark for
good upon the handicrafts of Egypt. In connection with
handicrafts must be mentioned the wonderful life-size
statue of the king, made of plates of copper or bronze,
fastened together with nails of the same material, which
was found by Mr. Quibell in the course of his excavations
at Hierakonpolis ; with it was also found a statue of his
son which was rather more than two feet high. The
copper statue was, unfortunately, discovered in a state
of collapse, but the portions of it which had been cleaned
and re-joined, when the writer saw them in the Museum
of Grizeh, testified to the great skill to which the workers

1 Lepsius, Derikmaler, ii. 115.

2 He also styled himself Meri-khat ; compare the text in his
pyramid, line 65.

VOL. II. H

9 8

SEAL-CYLINDER OF PEPI I.

[B.C. 3233

in bronze in Pepi's time had attained, and it is much to
be regretted that the ravages of time, and perhaps of
Egypt's enemies, have not permitted us to see in a
complete form an object in bronze which, for its age
and size, is as remarkable as any work of antiquity of
the period. The face shows that the artist who designed
the statue wished to give to it the repose and dignity

• - «ma»' l J - y. . 1 1$ f^ ^y

i / '

Inscription from a bronze seal-cylinder inscribed with the name and titles of
Pepi I. British Museum, No. 6495.

which are seen on the best stone statues of the period,
and it is clear that both artist and artisans must have
had considerable experience in the manipulation oi
metal before they could attempt to produce a bronze
figure of life size. It is noticeable, too, that the artist
gave additional life to the face by his method of treating
the eyes, a process already somewhat familiar to us

B.C. 3233] THE OFFICIAL UNA gg

from the fine stone statues of life size of the earlier
dynasties.

It goes without saying that Pepi must have been
served by a number of skilled as well as loyal officials,
and among these worthy of special mention is Una

\, and, as he gives a short autobiography of

himself cut in hieroglyphics upon a slab in his tomb, 1
the important information which he gives us may be
regarded as authentic. Una began life under king Teta,
that is to say, he " tied a girdle " upon himself under
the Majesty of Teta; the exact signification of the
phrase is doubtful, but it seems to me that in Teta's time
he was old enough to be charged with certain duties by
the king. After the death of his first patron Teta, Una
came under the notice of Pepi I., who confirmed him in
his appointments, and soon promoted him to the rank
of smer, and. made him inspector of the priests who
were attached to the service of his pyramids. Una was
next made a judge, and his relations with the king were
of such a confidential nature that he was allowed to be
present in the palace while some case in connection with
certain ladies of the king's household was tried the,re
by the chief officer of the law. Apparently in reward
for his services on this occasion the king presented to
him a white stone sarcophagus, with its cover, and with
the slabs of stone necessary for building the door, i.e.,

1 The original text is given by Mariette, Abydos, torn. ii. plates
44, 45 ; the first English, rendering of it was given by Dr. Birch
(Records of the Past, 1st ser. vol. ii. p. 1 ff.)'.

100 UNA'S PROMOTIONS [B.C. 3233

the side posts, lintel, and threshold, and His Majesty
sent the divine chancellor, | ^\) M£ , with a company

of troops to the quarry of Ke-au, 1 ^^ ^\ [v^vq ,

which is situated on the eastern bank of the Nile in
almost a straight line with the pyramids of Zawiyet
al-'Aryan on the western bank, and about ten miles to
the south of the modern Cairo. Such an honour as this
had never been paid to any servant before, says Una,
and he adds, " but I was good, and I was well pleasing
" unto His Majesty, and I satisfied the heart of His
" Majesty."

The king next made Una a " smer uat," and over-
seer of the palace, and his duties brought him into
still closer relations with his master, but he performed
them with such tact and address that Pepi was entirely
satisfied with him. Soon after this the king had a
dispute of a serious character with the chief royal wife

Amtes, Q <a I M, and Una was the only official who

was allowed to enter into the lady's apartment to in-
vestigate the matter ; he afterwards, with the help of a
judge, drew up a statement on the matter for the king,
who was wholly satisfied with the manner in which the
case had been inquired into by his trusty servant.
Subsequently king Pepi found it necessary to wage war

1 In Strabo's day a district near the quarry bore the name
Tpoia, and there is no doubt that he is referring to the same
quarry, for he says that the stone for building the pyramids came
from there, and that it was opposite them ; see Book XVII. i. 34.

B.C. 3233] UNA'S EXPEDITIONS 1 01

against the Aamu Heru-sha, ^ 1 ^ J J J <^>
V> _ a, a confederation of tribes, some of them per-

_Zf o o o

haps of Semitic origin, who were causing trouble in the
Eastern parts of the Egyptian kingdom, and especially in
Sinai ; whether on his own initiative, or whether on that
of Una cannot be said, but it is certain that Pepi decided
to fight these bold desert men with blacks drawn from
the Eastern Sudan. Una forthwith began to raise men
in tens of thousands from all parts of Egypt and from
Setcher, and Khen-setcher, and levies of negroes from

Arerthet, [ r^/i , and from Tcham, ft V\ i^s\ ,

and from Amain, ( ^ I |\ r^M , from Uauat,

, and from Kaau, M V\ K\ \> f\

and from Ta-tham, f\ r^^i f\, or Thameh,

i.e., Libya. It is impossible to state the exact position
and limits of each of these countries, but the peoples in-
dicated formed, no doubt, the most powerful of all the
desert tribes that lived in the Nile Valley between Aswan
on the north and Gebel Barkal on the south. At the head
of this great army of men Pepi placed Una, and this cap-
able official naively remarks that although he had been
only an overseer of the house of Pharaoh, ' ' Per-aa,

it was he who gave the word of command not only to
the army, but to all the generals and nobles who were
attached to the expedition ; and his command was so

102 SLAUGHTER OF THE HERU-SHA [B.C. 3233

strict that eacli man was compelled to perform the duties
which were allotted to him, and none of the levies
plundered the people through whom they passed of
bread or sandals, and no man stole bread from any
village, and no man carried off the animal, ram, or ewe,
which belonged to the inhabitants. In due course the
expedition marched against the Heru-sha and defeated
them, and the havoc which it wrought must have been
terrible. In its passage through the enemy's land it
slew the people by tens of thousands, it cut down the
vines and fig-trees, it overthrew the villages, and laid
waste the fields, and having burnt all that could be
burnt, carried off the wretched remainder of the in-
habitants, and " returned in peace " ! For these acts Una
received the greatest commendation from the king, and he
tells us that he was sent on similar punitive or raiding
expeditions five times. On one occasion he had to
pursue the Heru-sha in boats, and having landed near
the northern part of their territory, he fell upon their
army and slew them to a man. Soon after these events
Pepi the king died, and was succeeded by his son
Mer-en-Ra. The new king at once appointed Una to
be the bearer of his chair and sandals, and he made
him a Jul prince, <==^ 5 and governor of Upper Egypt ;
this indefatigable official performed his duties with such
zeal and discretion that his new master was as pleased
with him as his old one. Una declares that the ex-
cellence of conduct which he practised in the perform-
ance of his duties in Upper Egypt was such that it

B.C. 3233] UNA'S LABOURS AT ELEPHANTINE IO3

ought to become the standard for that of the governors
who should succeed him. While Una held the offices
already described his king despatched him to the district

of Abhat, IT] K\ » to bring back a stone sarco-

phagus, with its cover, and a small pyramid, etc., all of
which were to be placed in the royal pyramid ; he was
also sent to Abu (Elephantine Island) to bring back
slabs of granite which were to serve as false doors, etc.,
in the pyramid, and in the famous quarry of Het-nub,
near the modern Tell el-Amarna, he hewed an alabaster
table of offerings. All these massive objects he floated
down the river in boats of very broad beam, and they
were transported in due course to their places in the
pyramid. Finally Una was sent to the First Cataract
to make arrangements for the bringing of a larger supply
of granite for the building of the royal pyramid, and he
went there and seems to have cleared out the canal in the
Cataract sufficiently to admit of the entrance of a number
of boats of broad beam, which he had been ordered to
build for the transport of the granite required. The
chiefs of the Nubian tribes against whom he had fought
five times cut down the wood for him, and having built
the boats he loaded them heavily with granite, and
floated them down to Memphis ; he brings his autobio-
graphy to a conclusion by telling us that he was enabled
to do all these things because he prayed unto the

" souls," ^sb> , of his king more than to any other god,

and because everything happened according as it had been

104

PEPl'S PYRAMID AT SAKKARA [B.C. 3233

commanded to happen by the behest of the " double,"

LJ m, Ka. of the king. It seems that lame hollows

were dug in quarry beds when the Nile was low, and
that large, flat-bottomed barges were built in them ;
the blocks of granite were moved on to these barges,
which were built quite near the spot whence the blocks
were hewn, and when the Nile rose the barges floated
easily and were towed out into the main stream and

floated down the river.
The last paragraph of
Una's inscription is of
considerable interest,
for it proves that dead
kings were worshipped
as gods, and that the
affairs of this world
were believed to be
directed by the doubles
of living kings.

Pepi I. built a pyramid
at Sakkara which was
called l u Men - nefer,"
T A ; it was opened by Mariette in 1880, but

was not cleared out until the beginning of 1881.
According to Perring, on whose map it was marked
No. 5, the outer covering of this pyramid was
built entirely of well-cut blocks of stone which were

1 The Arabs called it the " Pyramid of Shekh abu Mansur."

22559

Alabaster vase inscribed with the names

and titles of Pepi I.

British Museum, No. 22,559.

B.C. 3233] ITS DIMENSIONS AND INSCRIPTIONS 105

quarried on the eastern banks of the river ; and the
greater number of them had already in his time been
removed by the natives for the purpose of building
houses, tombs, and the foundations of water-wheels,
which has also been the case with the outer stone
coverings of pyramids in the Sudan. The actual height
of the pyramid in Perring's day was 40 feet, and the
length of each side at the base 240 feet. The internal
construction of the pyramid of Pepi is much the same
as that of the pyramids of Unas and Teta, and the
walls of its various parts were covered in many places
with inscriptions. It was entered in ancient times
by thieves, who broke the granite sarcophagus, and
smashed its cover in pieces, and wrecked the mummy of
the king ; in one corner of the sarcophagus chamber
was a small red granite chest, which at one time held
the Canopic jars and the alabaster vases which were
deposited in the tomb. Paper impressions of the in-
scriptions were made by E. Brugsch Bey and others,
and the complete text was published, with a French
translation, by M. Maspero. 1 The pyramid of Pepi has
a modern interest also, for the inscriptions in it dis-
proved a view, which M. Mariette held with considerable
tenacity, to the effect that pyramids never did contain
any inscriptions inside them, and that it was only waste
of time and money to open them ; he carried his view
so far that, when shown the paper squeezes bearing the

1 See Recueil de Travaux, torn. v. p. 157 ff.

106 THE PYRAMID OF PEPI [B.C. 3233

characters ( B 00 J , Pepi pen, i.e., "this Pepi/' he

declared that the pyramid was only a raastaba of very
large dimensions which belonged to an individual
called Pepi-pen. 1

The following extract will illustrate the character of
the contents of the inscriptions inside the pyramid of
Pepi (line 1 ff.) : — " Hail, thou Pepi, thou journeyest
" on, thou art glorious, thou hast gotten power like the
" god who is on his throne, that is, Osiris. Thou hast
"thy soul within thy body, thou hast thy power behind
" thee, thy ureret crown is upon thy head, thy head-
" dress is upon thy shoulder[s], thy face is in front of
"thee, those who acclaim thee are on both sides of
" thee, the followers of the God are following after thee,
"the spiritual bodies (sdhu) of the God are upon both
" sides of thee, and they make the God to come ; the God
" cometh and Pepi cometh upon the throne of Osiris.
" The Spirit which dwelleth in the city of Netat cometh,
" and the power which dwelleth in the nome of Teni.
" Isis speaketh with thee, and Nephthys holdeth converse
"with thee; the Spirits come unto thee paying homage
" [unto thee], and they bow down, even to the ground,
" at thy feet by reason of thy book, Pepi, in the cities
" of Saa. Thou comest forth before thy mother Nut, and
" she strengtheneth thine arm and she giveth unto thee
" a path in the horizon to the place where Ka is. The
" doors of heaven are opened for thee, the gates of Qebhu

1 Maspero, op. cit., p. 157.

B.C. 3233] AND ITS RELIGIOUS INSCRIPTIONS 107

" are unbolted for thee, thou findest Ea, who guardeth
"thee, and he strengtheneth for thee thy hand, and
a he guideth thee into the northern and southern
"heavens, and he setteth thee upon the throne of
" Osiris.

" Hail, thou Pepi, the Eye of Horus cometh unto thee
" and holdeth converse with thee ; thy soul which dwelleth
" with the gods cometh unto thee, and thy Power (sekhew)
" which dwelleth among the Spirits cometh unto thee.
"In the same way that the son avenged his father,
" in the same way that Horus avenged Osiris, even so
" shall Horus avenge Pepi upon his enemies. And thou
" shalt stand [there], Pepi, avenged, and armed, and
" provided with the forms of Osiris who is upon the throne
" of the Governor of Amenti, and thou shalt have thy
" being as he hath his among the indestructible Spirits.
"And thy soul shall stand up upon thy throne provided
" with thy attribute[s], and it shall have its being as
"thou hast thine in the presence of him who is the
" Governor of the Living Ones, according to the decree
" of Ea, the great god, who shall plough the wheat and
"the barley and give it unto thee as a gift therein.
" Hail, thou Pepi, it is Ea who hath given unto thee all
" life and strength for ever, along with thy speech and
" thy body. And thou hast received the attribute[s] of
" the God, and thou hast become great therein before the
" Gods who dwell on the lake. Hail, thou Pepi, thy
" soul standeth among the gods and among the Spirits,
" and the fear of thee constraineth their hearts. Hail,

108 THE PYRAMID OF PEPI [B.C. 3233

"Pepi, inasmuch as thou hast set thyself upon thy
" throne of the Governor of the Living, tliy book it is
" which worketh upon their hearts ; and thy name liveth
" upon earth, and groweth old upon earth, and thou shalt
" neither perish nor decay for ever and ever. Rise thou
" up, Pepi, stand thou up, thou of great strength,
" and take thy seat at the head of the gods; and do thou
" the things which Osiris did in the house of the Prince
"in Annu (On). Thou hast received thy spiritual body,
" and thy foot shall not be restrained in heaven, and thou
" shalt not be repulsed upon earth.

" Hail, Osiris Pepi, arise, stand up, for thy mother
"Nut hath given birth unto thee, and Seb hath ar-
" ranged thy mouth for thee. The Great Company of
" the gods have avenged thee, and they have put thine
" enemies beneath thee. Pepi is pure. Pepi hath
"taken his staff, he hath provided himself with his
"throne, and he hath taken his seat in the boat of the
"Great and Little Companies of the gods; Ra trans-
"porteth Pepi to the West, and he stablisheth the
" throne of Pepi above the lords of the doubles (kau),
" and he writeth down Pepi at the head of the living.
"The Peh-ka which dwelleth in Qebh is opened unto
" this Pepi, and the iron which formeth the ceiling of the
" sky is opened unto this Pepi, and he passeth through
" onwards; his panther skin is upon him, and his sceptre
" and flail are in his hand. And Pepi is sound with his
"flesh, he is happy with his name, he liveth with his
"double (Ayi). This Pepi is indeed a god, and the angel

B.C. 3233] AND ITS RELIGIOUS INSCRIPTIONS IOg

" of God. This Pepi cometh forth to the eastern part of
" heaven where the gods are born, and where he himselt
"is born as Heru-khuti. Pepi is a being who hath ac-
" quired the power of making to come to pass everything
" which he uttereth, and the double (ha) of Pepi hath the
" same power. He eateth of that which ye (i.e., the gods)
" eat, he liveth upon that upon which ye live, he putteth
" on apparel like unto the apparel which ye put on, he
"aDointeth himself with the sweet-smelling substances
"wherewith ye anoint yourselves, he receiveth his water
" with you at the Lake of Mena of this Pepi, and he
" drinketh it out of the vessels of the spirits. ' Pepi goeth
" forth into heaven among the stars which never diminish,
" his sister is Septet (Sothis), and his guide, the Morn-
ing Star, leadeth him to Sekhet-hetep, and he seateth
" himself there upon his iron throne which hath lions'
" heads, and feet in the form of the hoofs of the bull
" Sema-ur. He standeth up there in his vacant place
" between the two great gods, and his sceptre, which is
"in the form of a papyrus, he hath with him. He
" stretcheth out his hand over the henmemet beings,
" and the gods come to him bending their backs in
" homage. The two great gods watch one on each
" side of him, and they find Pepi, like the Great and
"Little Companies of the gods, acting as the judge
" of words, being the prince [over] every prince. They
" bow down before Pepi, and they make offerings unto
"him as unto the Great and Little Companies of the
" gods."

no

THE PYRAMID OF MER-EN-RA [B.C. 3200

Ka-mer-en, son of the Sun, Mehti-em-sa-f, 1 MeOov-
aovcfyfc.

Ba-mer-en, or Mer-en-Ka, Mehti-em-
sa-f, the Methusuphis of Manetho, is said
to have reigned seven years, but of the
details of this short reign nothing is known.
Inscriptions at Aswan 3 and inWadiHamma-
mat prove that work was carried on in the
quarries at these places, and we may gather
ankh-khItt, f rom the inscription of Una, which has

the Horus name lr '

of Ra-mer-en. fo^ q U0 ted above, that the activity in
building, which began in Pepi's reign, was maintained
during that of his son. Mer-en-Ka built a pyramid

at Sakkara which is called " Khil Nefer," Q T A , in

the ancient Egyptian texts, and by the modern Arabs
"Haram es-Sayyadin," i.e., the "Pyramid of the
Hunters." This pyramid, which is No. 8 of Perring's
plan, was opened by M. Mariette in January, 1880 ;

1 The reading* of the first character of this name is doubtful.

2 Other titles were

lis-

,f a %,

and

and

3 Here the king is seen standing on the emblem of the union of
the South and North in the presence of the god Khnemu ; see
Lepsius, Denkmiiler, ii. 1166.

B.C. 3200] THE MUMMY OF MER-EN-RA

III

in Perring's time it was about 88 feet high, and each
side of the base was about 260 feet long. It was
broken into and plundered by robbers, who not only
wrecked the mummy of the king, but smashed the
walls and dug a large hole
in the masonry of the floor,
in their frantic search for
treasure. They forced up
the lid of the black granite
sarcophagus, and succeeded
in pushing it off far enough
to enable them to drag out
the mummy, and stripped it
naked. The pyramid was
again entered at the be-
ginning of the XlXth
century * by the natives
of Sakkara, who brought out from it a number of
the inscribed alabaster vases which are now so well
known. The mummified remains of the king are now
preserved in the Museum at Cairo, and M. Maspero
declares that an examination of the body proves that
Mer-en-Ka must have died when he was very young.
The features are well preserved,, but the lower jaw is
wanting ; to the right side of the head the " lock of
youth " was still attached when the remains were dis-
covered in the pyramid. The above facts prove that
the arts of embalming and swathing the bodies of the

1 Maspero, Recueil, torn. ix. p. 178.

44-93

Alabaster vase inscribed with the

names and titles of Mer-en-Ra.

British. Museum, No. 4493.

112 THE OFFICIAL HER-KHUF [B.C. 3200

dead had reached a high pitch of perfection in the YIth
Dynasty.

The inscriptions 1 which cover certain parts of the
passages and mnnimy chamber are, for the most part,
identical with those already known from those found
in the pyramids of Unas, Teta, and Pepi I. ; the
additional texts are merely amplifications of ideas,
hinted at or expressed in earlier religions documents,
and therefore need no illustrating by extracts here. We
have already seen how Una was employed in a con-
fidential capacity by Pepi I., and how this able official
was sent by Mer-en-Ka to the land of Abhat to fetch
the black granite sarcophagus, which still exists in his
pyramid as a silent witness of the mechanical skill of
the engineer of the day ; we have now to notice an
important piece of work which was performed by an-
other high official called Her-khuf. The tomb of this
distinguished man at Aswan contains a valuable
inscription 2 recording the chief episodes in his life, and
thus we have authentic information about some very
interesting events which took place during the reign of

Mer-en-Ka. Her-khuf, 9 ^ H p> *^— , was the

son of a man of high rank in the old frontier city of
Abu (Elephantine, Syene), and he was related to the
great chief Mekhu, whose tomb is at the top of the

1 See Brugsch, Zwei Pyramiden mit Inschriften in Aeg. Zeit-
sclirift, 1881, pp. 1-15 ; and Maspero, Recueil, torn. ix. p. 179 ff.

2 See Schiaparelli, Una Tomba Egiziana, Rome, 1892 ; and
Maspero, Revue Critique, November 28, 1892.

B.C. 3200] AND HIS EXPEDITION TO AMAM II3

staircase which is cut in the solid rock in the hill of
Contra-Syene ; he held the offices of chancellor and
divine chancellor, and he was a"kher heb" priest, and
" smer uat," a title usually explained to mean "only
friend." The king Mer-en-Ka sent him with his

father Ara (1 <g^ [ M\ to the country of Amam,

S J? vkk. rv ^ 1 5 in order to open out a [trade] route
therein ; the father and son made the journey in seven
months, and returned laden with stuff of all kinds.
The king was so pleased with the result of the expedi-
tion that he sent Her-khuf again to the south, and this
time he went without his father ; passing by Abu

(Syene), ? J Y\ © , he went to Arerthet, (

3

and Meskher, v\ ^ i^^i , and Terres,

^>~^i

and Arertheth, (1 g r^^i , and having spent eight

months in travelling he returned to Egypt laden with
goods of all kinds. He tells us that he visited the

courts of Sethu, /^jj ^v\ r^^i , and Arerthet, and that

this had never been done by any official of Abu before.
Again the king was pleased, and again sent him to
Amam, and he marched thither by way of an Oasis

(Uhat, ^\ Q ^\ ) ; as he was travelling on his way

he found that the king of Amam was marching to battle

with the king of the land of Themerj s=> ^b\ Q | ft ,

VOL. H. I

114 MEETING OF HER-KHUF AND UNA [B.C. 3200

i.e., Libya, in the west, and joining him he gave him
gifts and went with him to Themeh. Her-khuf was
very successful in this his third mission, for he per-
suaded the king of A mam to send a company of his
soldiers with him to Egypt, and it is clear that they
were intended to form an escort for the 300 asses laden
with incense, ebony, ivory, skins of animals, boome-
rangs, etc., which were going with him to Memphis.
On the way back he passed through the lands of
Arerthet, Sethu, and Uauat, and when the king of these
countries saw the large company of soldiers who were
with Her-khuf, he was astonished, and hastened to send
him a gift of oxen and goats. It is interesting to note
that Her-khuf tells us that, as he was going down the
river, he met his brother-official Una on his way up to
meet him with a number of boats, laden with wine and
other luxuries, which Mer-en-Ea had sent to him as a
reward for all the toil and labour of his travels. This
narrative is one of considerable interest, but it would be
much more valuable if we could find out exactly how
far Her-khuf went towards the south. The mention of
ivory and ebony naturally leads us to think of the
country near Dar-Fiir, and even further south, but it
must also be remembered that the home of these
products was then probably very much farther to the
north than it is at the present time. The expeditions
undertaken by Her-khuf were of a trading character,
and it says much for the tact and ability of this official
that his journeys were so successful.

B.C. 3166] PYRAMID OF PEPI II. AT SAKKARA 115

S>

5. M [o|Lj] ^ Qjjj] Ra-nefer-ka, son

of the Sim, Pepi, $iu>ty.

Ba-nefer-ka, or Nefer-ka-Ra, Pepi II.,
or Phiops, was the brother of Mer-en-Ra, and
son of Pepi I. ; according to Manetho, he
began to reign when he was six years old,
and " he reigned until he had completed his
" hundredth year " (Cory, op. cit., p. 104).
Of the details of the long reign of this king

Neter Khait, 00 <~>

the Horus name no thing is known. On a rock in the Wadi

of Pepi II. o

Maghara is a fine relief in which we see the
Horus name and prenomen of the king placed together
in his serekh or cognizance, while above it is the
hawk of Horus wearing the crowns of the South and
North ; the inscription on the right shows that it
was executed in the second year of the reign of Pepi II. ,
and that on the left records the names of his mother
and wife. 1 A number of small inscriptions prove
that the works went on in the large quarries during
his reign as in the time of his predecessors, but the
reliefs and texts which are found in mastaba tombs
of the period have not the beauty, accuracy, and finish
which are such characteristic qualities of the work of
the early years of the Early Empire. Pepi II. built a
pyramid at Sakkara which the ancient Egyptians called

1 See Lepsius, Denlcmaler, ii. plate 116.

n6

ALABASTER VASE OF PEPI II. [B.C. 3166

" Men-ankk," nr A , but to which their modern

representatives have given the name "Haram (Pyramid)
al-Mastaba," because it is situated near the building
which is commonly called " Mastabat al-Fir'aun." On
the plan of Lepsius it is marked No. 41, and on that of
Perring No. 9 ; in his time its actual height was 95 feet,
and the length of each side at the base was 245 feet.

This pyramid was opened
in 1881 by M. Maspero,
who found it to be so
badly built that the
workmen were in serious
danger of the sides of
the places which they
were clearing out falling
in upon them ; as it
was, MM. Bouriant and
Maspero were shut in
for several hours * on
one occasion, owing to a
sudden collapse of a part
of the vaulted roof. The
plan of the pyramid of Pepi II. is identical with the other
four of the class which we have already described, and
the inscriptions in it are of the same character as the
inscriptions in the others ; indeed it is quite clear that
all five were planned by one group, perhaps even by one

4492

Alabaster vase inscribed with the name

and titles of Pepi II.

British Museum, No. 4492.

See Recueil, torn. xii. p. 56.

B.C. 3166] DESTRUCTION OF THE KING'S MUMMY 117

family, of architects, and the inscriptions were probably
chosen for all of them by the priests who were attached
to the same religions brotherhood, i.e., the priests of
Ra-Temu of Heliopolis. The pyramid of Pepi II. was,
like the others, broken into by Arab spoilers, who left
behind them one or two green glazed earthenware lamps.
One of the workmen x related to M. Maspero that his
grandfather, as a child, had worked in the excavations
which were made at the end of the XVIIIth century by
the people of the village of Sakkara with the view of
entering the pyramid, and he added that they had found
numbers of objects in alabaster ; it is clear that he
referred to the beautiful vases inscribed with the names
and titles of Pepi II., of which so many examples are
known. The sarcophagus is of granite and is in a good
state of preservation, for the thieves managed to thrust
aside the cover, which now rests partly on the sarco-
phagus and partly on the two buttresses, which are built
of unbaked bricks, and which were placed between the
sarcophagus and the west wall in order to support the
cover whilst the workmen were getting it into its final
resting-place on the sarcophagus. The thieves seem to
have made away with the king's mummy entirely, for
no trace of it whatsoever was found ; scattered about
the sarcophagus chamber were some fragments of linen
bandages, a fact which seems to show that the mummy
was broken to pieces in the tomb by the thieves in their
frantic search for treasure. The hieroglyphics of the

1 Recueil, torn. xii. p. 54.

Il8 FURTHER MISSION OF HER-KHUF [B.C. 3166

inscriptions are very much smaller than those in the
texts of Unas, and notwithstanding all the lost para-
graphs which were destroyed when the thieves broke
the walls to pieces in their search for gold, the total
amount of text still preserved to us in the pyramid of
Pepi II. is equal to all that found in the other four
pyramids of the class. 1

We have already mentioned the three expeditions to
the Eastern Sudan, which were undertaken by Her-khuf
for Mer-en-Ea, the elder brother of Pepi II., and which
were successfully carried out during that king's reign,
and we must now mention the services which this dis-
tinguished man performed for Pepi II., his new master.
In addition to the inscription in his tomb which supplies
the account of three expeditions given above (see p. 112),
the walls are inscribed with the copy of a letter which
was sent him by Pepi II., dated on the 16th day of the
third month of the inundation of the second year of the
king's reign ; that it is a copy of a letter actually re-
ceived by Her-khuf there is no reason to doubt, and as
it was copied on the walls of his tomb it is only reason-
able to assume that the contents of the royal despatch
are faithfully reproduced there. After the address the
king states that he knows the contents of Her-kkuf's
letter, informing him that he had entered the country
of Aniam with his soldiers in peace, and that he had
brought back to Egypt all the good things which Hathor,

1 Recueil, torn. xii. p. 56.

B.C. 3166] JOURNEY TO PYGMY LAND Iig

the lady of Ammaau, (I f\ t ^\ ^fe\ ^K r^^i , had

given to the double (ka) of the ever-living king Nefer-
ka-Ka, i.e., Pepi II. The king then refers to Her-
khuf's letter to him in which he reported that he had
brought back a " Tenk (i.e., pygmy) of the dancers of

the god from the Land of the Spirits, fr^k u\\
like unto the Tenk which the divine chancellor

Ba-ur-Tettu brought back from Punt in the time of
Assa," and which Her-khuf declared to be the only one
of the kind ever brought back by any visitor to Amain.
Pepi next mentions the watchful devotion which Her-khuf
shows on behalf of the king's interests, and he promises
him that, in return for this loyal service, he will bestow
upon his son's son such exceedingly great honours that
all the people who shall hear of them will exclaim,
" The like hath never before been done to that which
" hath been done for the ' smer uat ' Her-khuf when he
"went to the country of Amain, and he watched that he
"might do what [the king] wished, and approved and
" commanded." Following this comes the royal command
that Her-khuf should set out forthwith for the palace
by boat, and that he should bring with him the pygmy
which he had brought out of the Land of the Spirits,
sound and whole, that he might gladden and make
happy the heart of the king, who is curiously eager to
see the rare being. And Her-khuf is ordered by his

120 HER-KHUF BRINGS BACK A [B.C. 3166

sovereign to provide proper people, o nf nt I v »

to prevent the pygmy from falling into the water on the
way down the river, and proper people are to watch
behind the place where he sleeps, and to look into it ten
times during the course of each night that they may be
sure that all is well with him, for, says the king, " My
" Majesty wisheth to see this pygmy more than all tribute
" of Bata and Punt. And if thou comest to court having
"this pygmy with thee, sound and whole, my Majesty
"will do for thee more than was done for the divine
"chancellor Ba-ur-Tettu in the time of Assa, and con-
" formably to the greatness of the desire of the heart of
" my Majesty to see this pygmy." The last paragraph of
the inscription seems to refer to an order given by the
king to every priest, or superintendent of a temple, on
the way between Aswan and Memphis to supply Her-
khuf and his party with whatsoever they had need of
for their journey. It is much to be hoped that other
inscriptions of the kind may be forthcoming, for then it
would probably be possible to say how far in the Baruda
Desert and beyond Khartum the early Egyptian tra-
vellers like Ba-ur-Tettu, Una, and Her-khuf penetrated.
We shall probably be wrong if we assume that these
distinguished men were the first to make their way into
the Sudan for trading purposes, for the ebony and ivory
tablets which have been found in the tombs of the kings
of the 1st Dynasty, and of their immediate predecessors,
prove that commercial relations between the Sudan and
Egypt must have existed from time immemorial. In

B.C. 3133] PYGMY SAFE AND SOUND 121

the earliest times the route followed would be, no doubt,
that of the desert on the west bank of the Nile, for the
great bend of the river between Wadi Haifa and Abu
Hanimad, to say nothing of the difficulty of passing the
Second, Third, and Fourth Cataracts, except at the
period of the Inundation when the Nile was highest,
would make the shorter desert route to be preferred.
From Dar-Fur and the neighbourhood the old road ran
on the west bank almost directly to the Oases in the
Western Desert, and until the last few years it was the
one chosen by the heads of caravans in preference to
that by way of the river.

b - rsp\ I O M, ^\ I Ra-mer-en-

d C± V^ AAAAM ^=y ^fcirv^- ^^—^ J\

MEHT-EM-SA-F.

Pepi II. was succeeded, according to Manetho, by a
king called Menthesuphis, who reigned only one year ;
this king is, no doubt, to be identified with the king
whose names, as king of the South and North and as
son of the Sun, are enclosed within the above cartouche,
which is supplied by the Tablet of Abydos. Up to the
present no inscriptions of this king have been found,
and there is no mention of him in any known text.

?• tsr ( O K U 1 Ra-neter-ka.

This name follows that of Menthesuphis II. in the
Tablet of Abydos, but is wanting both in the Tablet of

122 DECAY OF THE POWER AT MEMPHIS [B.C. 3100

Sakkara and in the King List of Manetko ; no inscrip-
tions of this king are known, and there is no mention
of him in any text hitherto discovered. There are
numerous indications in the monuments which belong
to the end of the YIth Dynasty that the central
Government at Memphis was growing gradually weaker
and weaker, and that the kings of the period possessed
far less power throughout the country than formerly.
The mastabas and other tombs are less well built, the
reliefs are coarser and more carelessly executed, and the
fine motif, exhibited in the scenes and reliefs of the
IYth Dynasty, is entirely wanting.

8 * 1^2 C° ^ u l %?* G* 1 1 <^> \\1 Bi - MEN-KA >

son of the Sun, Netaqeeti, NYtw/c/h?.

The prenomen of this king, i.e., the name by which
he was known as king of the South and North,
Ea-men-ka, or Men-ka-Ea, is supplied by the Tablet
of Abydos, where it follows that of Ea-neter-ka ; the
name Netaqerti is supplied by the Eoyal Papyrus of
Turin, on a fragment of which it was first identified by
de Eouge. According to Manetho (Cory, op. cit., p.
106), the last monarch of the YIth Dynasty was a
woman who was at once the "bravest and most
beautiful " Y of her time ; her complexion was " red and

* ytrviKwrcLTii) na\ ev[xap(pOTa.T7],

B.C. 3100] NITOCRIS OF EGYPT 123

white," J and traditions of her great beauty have been
preserved in various forms by different writers. Ac-
cording to Herodotus (ii. 100), among the 330 other kings
whom the priests enumerated from a book there were
eighteen Ethiopians and one woman, and the name
of this woman who reigned was the same as that of the
Babylonian queen Nitocris. They said that she avenged
her brother whom the Egyptians had slain while
reigning over them ; and after they had slain him, they
then delivered the kingdom to her ; and she, to avenge
him, destroyed many of the Egyptians by stratagem ;
and, having caused an extensive apartment to be made
underground, she pretended that she was going to
consecrate it, but in reality had another design in view.
For, having invited those of the Egyptians whom she
knew to have been principally concerned in the murder,
she gave a great banquet, and when they were feasting,
she let in the river upon them, through a large, con-
cealed channel. This is all they related of her, except
that, when she had done this, she threw herself into a
room full of hot ashes in order that by killing herself
she might escape punishment. It need hardly be said
that the legend related by Herodotus is not supported
by the evidence of the inscriptions.

According to Manetho, she built the Third Pyramid,
i.e., the Pyramid of Men-kau-Ba, the Mycerinus of the
Greeks, and reigned twelve years, and there is little

1 According to another version £avdr) Te ttjv xpoav virdfj^aaa, " fair
skinned with rosy cheeks."

124 THE SARCOPHAGUS OF NITOCRIS [B.C. 3100

doubt that this writer was repeating a tradition which
was current at the time when he wrote. The similarity
between the queen's prenomen Men-ka-Ra and that of
her great predecessor, Men-kau-Ra, the actual builder of
the Third Pyramid, may have given rise to some confu-
sion, though it hardly seems likely, and the investigations
made in the Pyramids of Gizeh by Perring show that
for Manetho's statement some historical evidence exists.
In the course of his work Perring found that the
Pyramid of Mycerinus had been enlarged, and he
thought that the granite covering of the outside had
been placed on it during the reign of Nitocris, and at
her expense. In the ante-chamber he found fragments
of what must have been a magnificent sarcophagus
made of fine-grained blue basalt, and herein the body
of the queen rested. 1

Some of the Greek travellers in Egypt in ancient
times associated with the name of Nitocris that of
Rhodopis, the courtesan, to whom we have already
referred (see p. 58) ; according to M. Piehl, the
name Rhodopis, i.e., the " Red-faced," was first
given to the Sphinx at Gizeh, the face of which, as
everyone knows, was originally painted red, and it
seems that Nitocris was called the " Red-faced," and
the evil spirit with the red face which lived in the
Sphinx became identified with the Rhodopis whose

1 This view was accepted by de Rouge, Bunsen, Lepsius, and
others.

B.C. 3100] THE SPIRIT OF THE PYRAMID 125

body was interred in the Third Pyramid. 1 The Greeks
having identified Nitocris with Rhodopis, the well-
known Lesbian courtesan who lived in Egypt in
the time of Apries, the character which Rhodopis
had acquired was attributed to Nitocris by them, and
by their successors also, and a distant echo of this
reaches us in a story from Murtadi, which is quoted
both by Wiedemann and Maspero. According to this
writer the pyramids and temples of the ancient
Egyptians were inhabited by spirits, and presumably by
the spirits of those who were buried in them, or of
those who built them. He goes on to say that the
spirit of the southern pyramid never appears outside of
it, except in the form of a beautiful woman who is
absolutely naked, and that when she wishes to bestow
her favours upon anyone, and to make him lose his
senses, she smiles at him, whereupon he approaches her
straightway, and she draws him to her and makes him
so infatuated with love, that he loses his senses imme-
diately, and wanders round about the country. Many
persons have observed her wandering about the pyramid
at noon, and about the time of sunset. 2 The " southern
pyramid " is, no doubt, the pyramid of Mycerinus, and
the beautiful woman 3 clearly is Rhodopis-Nitocris. The

1 Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. xi. pp. 221-223.

2 Vattier, P., L'Egypte de Murtadi, fils du Gapliiphe, ou il est
traite des Pyramides, etc., Paris, 1666, pp. 61, 65.

3 "forme d'une femme nue, dont les parties honteuses niesnie
sont descouvertes, belle au reste."

126 CESSATION OF WORK IN THE QUARRIES [B.C. 3100

fact that a sovereign called Netaqert reigned over Egypt
at the end of the Vlth Dynasty is beyond donbt, but
some Egyptologists have asserted that this sovereign
was a man ; there is, however, nothing to surprise us in
Manetho's statement that Netaqert was a woman, for
the social position held by women in Egypt was
very high, and we know that already in the time of
the Ilnd Dynasty it was decreed that women were
eligible for the highest offices of the state. But
whether Netaqert was a man or a woman matters
little historically.

It is not difficult to gather from the absence of
contemporaneous monuments that the rule of the central
government at Memphis must have been very weak,
and it cannot even be said from them if Netaqert
was the last sovereign of her dynasty or not. The
probability is that she was not, and it is tolerably
certain that none of her successors, who were the
descendants of the pyramid-builders of the Vlth
Dynasty, was able to make his rule effective. During
their feeble reigns no work was carried on in the great
quarries of Egypt, or in the turquoise mines of the
Peninsula of Sinai, for their names are not mentioned
on the rocks at Elephantine, Het-nub, Hammamat,
Tura, or the Wadi Maghara. What happened in those
times must have been similar to that which always
took place in Egypt whenever the strong hand of a
vigorous king was wanting. The hereditary princes
in the various parts of the country asserted their

B.C. 3100] AT THE END OF THE SIXTH DYNASTY 127

independence, small local chiefs began to quarrel with
each other and to usurp each other's possessions, and
the common people flocked naturally to the standard of
the man who was most powerful or most successful in
making good his claims, just or unjust. Meanwhile
the worship of the gods was neglected, and their shrines
became impoverished, and every man literally did
what was right in his own eyes. The trades and the
arts declined because no man could afford to build
mastaba tombs, or pyramids, or sepulchral edifices of
any kind, and the condition of Egypt at the end of the
YIth Dynasty must have been that of certain provinces
in the East at the present day.

( 128 )

CHAPTEE V.

THE FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH DYNASTIES. — SUMMARY.

From what has been said in the account of the IVth,
Vth, and Vlth Dynasties it is clear that we are dealing
with a period of comparatively rapid development of
Egyptian civilization which was followed by an almost
equally rapid period of decline. In the period of the
first three dynasties the rule of the Egyptian king-
appears to have been limited to a tract of country
which extended from Silsilis or Hermonthis in the
south to Buto in the north ; but by the end of the
Vlth Dynasty we find the Egyptian frontiers pushed
forward to Elephantine in the south, and to the Mediter-
ranean on the north. The tribes of the Delta swamps,
which are referred to in the texts of the time of the
Vth and Vlth Dynasties and onwards under the name

of " Haau " and " Hau nebu," l # ^\ jj %> j , or

1 These tribes have been discussed by W. M. Muller, Asien und
Europa, p. 24, and by H. R. Hall, Oldest Civilization of Greece,
p. 157 ff., who shows that, although in later times the Egyptians
included the Greeks in the term Haau-nebu, under the Early
Empire this name meant the dwellers in the swamps and fens of
the Delta, and nothing more.

THE BABYLONIANS VISIT SINAI 120,

7 JL, tribes which were certainly not Egyptian

and which were always regarded by the Egyptians as
being outside the pale of the Egyptian religion, were
brought into subjection to the Egyptian rule. We have
already mentioned that the Egyptians had obtained a
foothold in the Sinaitic Peninsula as early as the time
of Tckeser, a king of the Illrd Dynasty ; under the
IYth Dynasty the portion of the Peninsula wherein
were situated the copper mines was systematically
occupied by the Egyptians, and the copper mines were
worked by Egyptian labour and defended by Egyptian
soldiers. About this period the Peninsula must also
have been visited by expeditions from Babylonia, under
the leadership of the kings Sargon of Agade and his
son Naram-Sin, which are mentioned in the Omen
texts written in the Assyrian cuneiform character. The
object of such expeditions was to obtain stone for
building purposes, which was so rare in Babylonia, and
it is probable that Egypt itself was visited by these
kings, for the native tradition which was reproduced
in the Omen texts asserted that Naram-Sin went to
Makan, 1 a country which can only be identified satisfac-
torily with Sinai, and conquered it and its king. 2 We

1 "Naram-Sin went to the land of Makan

[] v ^yyy ^^e *~*~] t^\ W\ £]] • he to ° k the iand ° f

Makan, and his hand captured .... the king of Makan." See
Cuneiform Inscriptions, vol. iv. plate 34, K. 2130, Rev. 11. 15 ff.

2 See De Sarzec, Lecouvertes, plate 16, col. vii. 11. 10 ff. ; and
plate 17, col. vi. 11. 26 ff., 38 ff.

VOL. II. K

I30 THE TRIBES OF SINAI

may note here in passing that Gudea, a Babylonian
king who reigned about B.C. 2500, i.e., more than one
thousand years after Sargon and Naram-Sin, tells us in
a contemporary inscription that he brought stone for
his statues from Makan, and gold dust and ushu wood
from Melukhkha ; Makan and Melukhkha must then
represent Sinai and Egypt, identifications which are
confirmed by the inscriptions of Ashur-bani-pal, king of
Assyria, in which Egypt is referred to under the name
of Melukhkha.

The native tribes of Sinai and the adjacent country
were known to the Egyptians at this time by the

names of " Menthu " and " Menti," ^^ s=

■ i ii n i in

AAA/W\

A/WW\
■ ■

■iiiiiiiiii. .

, which, in later days, are spelt j 1 1

/www I

former of these names means "diggers," or "cave-
makers," i.e., Troglodytes, and the latter "rock-
dwellers." The Menti are also called the " Menti of
Sathet " H t=3 ^, i.e., " the Menti of Asia " j 1 the
name Sathet is derived from jT >\ M£ Sathti, i.e.,
an Asiatic, literally a " shooter " or "hunter." Other

1 The name Sathet which occurs in the pyramid text of Pepi

(1. 90) must refer to Asia, and not to the region of the cataract ;

this is proved by the ivory plaque in Petrie, Royal Tombs, plate 17,

% e
No. 30, where the name ' " is given above the figure of an

Asiatic prisoner.

THE LIBYANS AND THE NEGROES I3I

tribes of the deserts to the east of Egypt, which were
probably raided by the Egyptians yearly, were known
by the name " Heru-sha," i.e., the "'dwellers on the

sand," * ^\ a, who are also known as " Aamu-

^ — > Ti 000

q fv r~vn

Heru-sha/' ) t\ J J j) * ^ rZo,i.e., "bar-

barian dwellers on the sand," the name " Aamu "
signifying " eastern barbarians " ; another name for the

same group of tribes is " Petchti-shu,"

r^-^i

Nile Val

i.e., "Bowmen of the desert." 1 The Libyan tribes
which dwelt in the deserts to the west of Egypt were
known in the earliest times by the name "Thehennu,"

I o, the name "Libu" not occurring until a much

later period. The negroes and the negroid tribes of the

Sudan were known by the general name of "Nehes,"

(\ \ o l

Ha 1 , and they appear to have occupied the

ey as far north as Elephantine. Under the
kings of the Vlth. Dynasty their countries of Aain,
Uauat, Arerthet, etc., were more or less in subjection
to Egypt, for in the wars which Pepi I. waged against
the Heru-sha his general Una brought negro troops
from Arerthet, Metcha, Aam, Uauat, and Kaau, to
assist the Egyptians. In the reign of Mer-en-Ka, and
of Pepi II., the high official Her-khuf was sent to the
countries of Sethu, and Arerthet, and Aam three
times ; on the occasion of his third visit he went to the

1 See Miiller, Asien unci Europa, p. 16.

132 THE LAND OF PUNT

last named country by way of the Great Oasis, and
found the prince of Aam at war with Themeh or
TheheDnu, i.e., the Libyans. He presented to the
prince of Aam the gifts which the king of Egypt had
sent to him, and brought back to Egypt a number of
the people of Aam, three hundred asses laden with
ivory, ebony, incense, panther skins, boomerangs, etc.
Her-khuf in his narrative adds that " when the king
" of Arerthet, Sethu, and Uauat saw the troop of the
" people of Aam that was coming to the palace with me
" and my soldiers who had been sent with me, this chief
" wondered, and gave me oxen and goats." In connection
with the negroes the land of Punt must be mentioned,
although the peculiar relations of this country with
Egypt and its identity have been already discussed. 1

1 See above, Vol. I., p. 46 f. In recent years it has been posi-
tively asserted that Mashonaland is the land of Pnnt, whence the
Egyptians obtained gold, and that it is also the Ophir, whence
Solomon obtained gold. The most serious attempt to prove these
statements made in recent years is given by the Hon. A. Wilmot
in his Monomotapa {Rhodesia), London, 1896. The author, who
writes quite in good faith, was commissioned by the Right Hon.
Cecil Rhodes to write the history of Monomotapa, and he spent a
great deal of time in visiting Rome, Lisbon, and London in search
of documentary evidence in support of his settled conviction that
Monomotapa is the " Ophir of King Solomon," and, of course, he
found it. Mr. Wilmot begins by assuming that Mr. Bent proved
that the ruins at Zimbabwe were those of buildings erected by the
Phoenicians, but Mr. Bent "proved" nothing of the kind, as
several competent archaeologists told him. Mr. Wilmot then
sketches out a history of Phoenicia, and finally concludes, "It is
" certainly a startling fact, illustrating the truth of the aphorism
' ' that there is ' nothing new under the sun ' when we find what

OPHIR AND PUNT 133

Under the YItli Dynasty regular communication with
Punt seems to have been maintained overland by way
of the Upper Nile Valley and the adjacent countries
of the Negroes, for both Ba-ur-Tettu, an officer of King

" was very probably tlie mines of Ophir one thousand years before
" Christ becomes the most recent ' diggings ' of the British South
"Africa Company, in the reign of Queen Yictoi'ia" (p. 118).
Statements of this kind may suit a mining company's prospectus
very well, but when set out as archaeological facts they can only
be described as incorrect and misleading. In Tlie Times of
October 23rd, 1901, appeared the following letter from Mr. Carl
Peters on " Ophir and Punt" : —

Sir, — Since writing to you in August 011 the subject of my
researches regarding the Punt question I have received, through
the kindness of Mr. Fairbriclge in Umtali, tracings of three newly-
discovered Bushmen paintings in Eastern Mashonaland. These
paintings, which I shall be pleased to show to any scholar in-
terested in these matters, show distinctly the influence of Egyptian
art. The head-dresses in one of them are absolutely identical with
paintings on Egyptian hieroglyphic representations. I see from
the researches of the late Ed. Glaser on the Punt question that
he, without knowing my discoveries of this year, was, already in
1899, of opinion that Mashonaland was a part of the ancient
Egyptian country " Poen-at " or "Punt." Glaser brings forward
as evidence for his theory the name Ras-Hafun ("Ha" being
mahritic prefix; "Fun" being identical with "Phoun" or
" Punt "). I beg to add to this philological evidence that the
repeated appearance of the name " Pun-gwe " in East and South
Africa (for instance, the Pungwe river, coming from Manicaland
and with its mouth at Beira) leads us to the same conclusion. I,
therefore, think that even Professor Keane will now be convinced
that there is some conclusive evidence for the theory that the
ancient Egyptians got their Punt gold from South Africa. The
representation of the Punt expedition under the Queen Hat-Shepsut
(XVIIIth Dynasty, B.C. 1516—1481) in the temple of Deir-el-Bahri
proves that the ancient Egyptian ships were stronger than the
modern Arabic dhows, and, therefore, absolutely fit to cross the

134 THE LAND OF THE PYGMIES

:*

Assa, and Her-khuf, 1 in the time of Pepi II., made
expeditions thither ; and it is clear that the land
of the Negroes on the south was bounded by the
land of the pygmies, specimens of whom were taken from
time to time to Pharaoh's court at Memphis.

The general advance in civilization in the period of
the IVth, Vth, and YIth Dynasties is marked by con-
siderable progress in the use of metals ; the Egyptians

Indian Ocean. That Punt was an African and not an Asiatic
district is proved by the single fact that giraffes are among the
articles of the return freight. It is proved, therefore, by philo-
logical evidence that this country Punt reached further south than
Cape Guardafui, and by zoological evidence that it was an African
district. Now we find in South Africa, between the Zambesi and
Sabi, the grand relics of ancient gold-mining. Copper is men-
tioned as one of the products of the Punt expeditions. I have
discovered a chain of ancient copper workings along the Sabi river
this year. Can any scholar who, like Professor Flinders Petrie,
locates Punt in Somaliland, bring forward any similar evidence?
Therefore I am of opinion that I can now prove that the ancient
Egyptians as well as the Jews of King Solomon's period got their
gold mainly from South Africa, that Punt and Afur (Hebrew,
Ophir) are the same country — East Africa from Cape Guardafui
down to the mouth of the Sabi. South Africa, therefore, was the
Eldorado of the most ancient nations of history.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,'

Carl Peters.

The whole question of the position of Punt has been fully discussed
by MM. Maspero and Naville, whose works on the subject have
been already mentioned, but it is important to state that no
evidence exists which would place Punt further south than the
Elephant river on the East coast of Africa, and that all the
Egyptological evidence at present available contradicts Mr. Peters'
assertion that the Egyptians <c got their gold mainly from South
Africa."

1 ller-khuf describes Punt as the " land of the spirits or ghosts."

THE USE OF METALS

135

of the first three dynasties used copper and flint indis-
criminately, but the Egyptians of the IVth Dynasty
employed chiefly tools made of bronze. Flint was still
used largely in making teeth for sickles, knives, etc.,
and it is not until nearly the end of the Middle
Empire, about B.C. 2000,
is reached that its use
was confined to the
making of knives, etc.,
employed for ceremonial
purposes. But it would
be wrong to assert that
at this period the Egyp-
tians were living in the
" Bronze Age " of their
country, for iron was
certainly known to and
used by them in the
centuries which we are
discussing, i.e., from
about B.C. 3800 to 3000.
Iron objects of the
Ancient Empire are ex-
ceedingly rare, it is true,
but the word for iron is

met with in the Pyramid Texts of Unas, and paintings
of the time of the Ancient Empire are known in
which weapons, tools, etc., are painted blue or black,
i.e., the colour by which iron is indicated. In face

Statue of an Egyptian official.

IVth Dynasty.
British Museum, No. 2i, 714.

136 BRONZE STATUE OF PEPI I.

of these facts it is hazardous to declare, as lias
been done, that iron was not known to the Egyptians
before B.C. 1000. l In the most primitive graves of
the "New Eace " period we find flint implements
only in use, and Egypt was then in its Neolithic Age ;
at the end of the preclynastic period we find that
copper has been introduced, and we may fairly assume
that the knowledge of this metal and the working of it
were brought into Egypt by the people who are
generally known as the " Followers of Horus." The
art of making bronze was introduced into Egypt very
soon after, but whether it was brought from Babylonia
or not cannot at present be decided ; it is, however,
certain that the Egyptians of the Vlth Dynasty were
very skilful in manipulating the metal, a fact which is
proved by the large bronze statue of Pepi L, the remains
of which were found by Mr. Quibell at Hierakonpolis.
Iron was certainly known to the Egyptians as early as
the Vth Dynasty, and from the fact that iron plays a
great part in ancient Egyptian myths, it is probable
that it was known by them at a far earlier period. Thus
the firmament of heaven is described as a rectangular
iron plate, each corner of which was supported by a
pillar, and the throne of the supreme god is made of iron
ornamented with the faces of lions and with feet in the

1 The whole subject has been exhaustively discussed by Prof.
Piehl in Ymer, Stockholm, 1888, p. 94 ff. (Bronsalder i Egypten?),
and the gist of his arguments will be found in H. E. Hall, Oldest
Civilization of Greece, p. 198, note 2.

IRON IN EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY

137

form of the hoofs of bulls. 1 It is perhaps hardly neces-

V

can mean

sary to state that "baa," J [

nothing else but "iron," for the form " baa en-pet " i.e..

The Egyptian official Ka-Tep and Ins wife Hetepet-hers. IVth Dynasty.
British Museum, No. 1181.

"baa of heaven," is the original of the Coptic benipe,
" iron " ; " baa en-pet," then, means meteoric iron.
The remains of the buildings which can be certainly

1 See Recueil de Travaux, torn. vii. p. 154 (11. 309, 310).

138 THE GREAT PYRAMID

assigned to the period of the IVth, Vth, and Ylth
Dynasties prove that the Egyptians had already acquired
most remarkable skill in architecture, for no buildings
which can rival the pyramids of G-izeh have ever been
erected. These mighty works, which were constructed
in the dawn of civilization, seem destined to outlast the
greatest efforts of modern architects and engineers, for
history shows that already they have withstood the
attacks of the elements, of time, and of man for a period
of six thousand years. The account given by Herodotus
of the means by which they were erected is probably
correct, for mechanical appliances for raising the stones,
though of an elementary kind, must have been used ; in
addition to these the only requisites for the erecting of
monuments of this kind were the use of an inclined
plane of sand, and unlimited supplies of labour and
material. The conception of the Great Pyramid is a
masterpiece of the human mind, and the skill with
Avhich the architect's plan was carried out by the
builders is no way unworthy of the grandeur of the
design. The kings who built these pyramids intended
them to be their tombs ; they are nothing but tombs,
and were designed for no more mysterious purpose ; but
the effect which they have produced upon the mind of
man in all ages has been so great that they, above all
other Egyptian monuments, have been made the subjects
of ignorant and superstitious beliefs which have been
often paraded before the world in a pseudo-scientific
garb.

£m

5£ -.«"- -»"»«. I

CO CM O O * O «.

c

"=i*"'t JM«C

c

MASTABA TOMBS NEAR THE GREAT PYRAMID 139

Less massive and less elaborate sepulchres sufficed
for the needs of the royal noblemen and officials,
and "houses of eternity" which were constructed for
them took the form called " mast aba," * from the fact
that a building of the
kind, when half buried
in sand, closely re- ^? «a»,.,s®

sembled the long, low
seat, or bench, which
is so common in
Oriental houses. The
mastaba is a heavy,
massive building, of
rectangular shape, the
four sides of which
are four walls sym-
metrically inclined to-
wards their common
centre. The exterior
surfaces are not flat,
for the face of each
course of masonry,
formed of stones laid
vertically, is a little
behind the one be-
neath it, and if these
recesses were a little deeper, the external appearance
of each side of the building would resemble a flight

Fi^S

/ "'"///,

The Great Pyramid with the mastaba

tombs of officials and others arranged

in rows behind it.

1 From the Arabic sJa.** " bench.

I40 DESCRIPTION OF THE MASTABA TOMB

of steps. The stones which, form the building are
of a moderate size, and, with the exception of those
used for the ceiling and architrave, have an average
height of 18 or 20 inches. The width and length
of the mastaba vary; the largest is about 170 feet
long by 86 feet wide, and the smallest 26 feet long
by 20 feet wide ; they vary in height from 13 to
30 feet. The best examples of the mastaba are found
at Sakkara, and round about the Great Pyramid, where
they are arranged symmetrically, the plan of their
arrangement resembling the squares on a chess board ;
we have seen that in the earliest times the king's
priestly, military and civil officials, as well as private
noblemen, were buried in small side chambers of the
royal tomb, but under the Illrd and following Dynasties
we find that the royal tomb forms the centre of a regular
necropolis. The mastaba was built of stone or brick, and
consisted of three parts : the chamber for offerings ; the
serdab, or partially closed niche in the chamber for
offerings wherein the statue of the deceased was placed ;
and the pit which was excavated in the solid rock, and
down which the deceased in his coffin was lowered to the
subterranean mummy-chamber into which the pit opened.
The interior walls of the chamber for offerings were
ornamented with scenes, either painted or sculptured,
which are chiefly biographical, and which represent the
daily occupation of the deceased, his amusements, and
the routine work of the artisans and labourers wlio were
maintained by him upon his estates. The texts which

SCULPTURE IN THE FOURTH DYNASTY 141

accompany such scenes usually record the name and

titles of the deceased at great length, and sometimes

explain in a few simple

words the meaning of the

pictures ; religious texts

are, in the case of private

persons, usually confined

to the prayers to Osiris,

Ap-uat, Anubis, etc., for

the granting of a happy

hurial after a good old

age, and a regular supply

of funeral offerings to

their tombs. These are

usually cut in bold

hieroglyphics over the

entrances, and in other

prominent places in the

tombs.

The statues which
have been mentioned in
connection with the ser-
dab have already in the
IVth and Vth Dynasties
reached the culminating
point of Egyptian art,
and in later dynasties no
sculptor ever produced any statue which could in any
way rival such works of his predecessors as the famous

The Shekh el-Balad.
(From, a cast in the British Museum.)

I42 FOURTH DYNASTY BAS-RELIEFS AND STATUES

"Shekh al-Balad" in the Museum at Cairo, the "Scribe"
of the Museum of the Louvre, and the statue of An-

kheft-ka in the British
Museum. The sculptor of
the IVth Dynasty en-
deavoured to reproduce the
faces and figures of his
sitters in fac-simile, and it
is quite certain that he
succeeded. The finest bas-
reliefs and statues found
in the mastabas belong to
the end of the IVth and
the beginning of the Yth
Dynasty ; at the end of the
Yth Dynasty both design
and workmanship are less
good, and by the end of the
VI tli Dynasty the whole
character of funeral build-
ings, and of the reliefs and
paintings employed to orna-
ment them, has undergone
a decided change for the

iv

Statue of An-kheft-ka.

IVth Dynasty.

British Museum, No. 1239.

worse, a change which fore-

shadows the state of tem-
porary degeneration into
which Egyptian art fell during the period which
elapsed between the Early and Middle Empires. The

THE KING S TOMB I43

chambers of the royal pyramids of the IVth Dynasty
were neither inscribed with texts nor ornamented and
painted with reliefs, but at the end of the Vth Dynasty
it became the custom to ornament the walls of the
corridors and chambers of the king's tomb with
selections from a loiag series of spells, incantations,
and prayers, which were designed to ensure the safe

:E°yptian model of an ancient Egyptian house. IVth to Vlth Dynast v.
British Museum, No. 32,613.

arrival of the deceased king in the realm of Osiris,
the god and judge of the dead, and his reception as a
powerful god by the gods, and by the spirits and souls
of the righteous who were living in Amenti. These
collections of magical texts are known generally as the
" Pyramid Texts," and they represent the earliest form
of the Eecension of the Booh of the Bead, which is

144 HELIOPOLITAN BOOK OF THE DEAD

called " Heliopolitan." A perusal of these texts, how-
ever, shows that they were probably based on very early
documents, no copies of which have come down to us ;
the Heliopolitan character of the texts is, of course,
due to the influence of the priesthood of Heliopolis
(Annu, or On), which, during the period of the Vth
Dynasty, had become dominant in the religious colleges
of Egypt. The selections of magical and religious texts
which are found in the pyramids of the Yth and Vlth
Dynasties constitute the whole of the religious literature
of the best period of the Early Empire ; towards the end
of this period texts of this kind were divided into sections
and classified, and their editors seem to have begun to
arrange them in the form which is familiar to us from
later Kecensions of the Booh of the Dead. As an
example may be mentioned the texts on the sarcophagus
of Beb, which was found at Denderah, 1 and which is
now in the Museum at Cairo ; here we have a selection
of texts, many of which have titles and are identical
with Chapters found in the Theban Eecension of the
Booh of the Dead.

The inscriptions and remains which belong to the
whole period of the Egyptian Empire show that the
gods and goddesses of Egypt were the same substan-
tially in the earliest as in the latest days of its history,
with the exception of the Theban triad of Amen, Mut,
and Khonsn, who, from occupying a very subordinate

See Petrie, Devderah, plate 37.

TEMPLES IN THE FIRST DYNASTY

145

position among the lesser gods in the period of the Vtli
Dynasty, rose, with the rising fortunes of the kings of
Thebes, until they practically usurped the position of
the principal gods of ancient Egypt. None of the
original temples of the period in which these gods were
worshipped have come down to us, for they were all re-
built under the Xllth and following dynasties ; we

Egyptian model of an ancient Egyptian house. IVth to Vlth Dynasty.
British Museum, No. 32,610.

know, however, from isolated monuments which have
been preserved in the existing temples that the greater
number of them were founded at least as far back as
the IVth Dynasty. Of a few temples, e.g., that of
Hierakonpolis, it can be definitely stated that they
were founded in the remote period of the 1st Dynasty.
Sir Norman Lockyer has argued, and has produced

VOL. II. L

I46 WRITING IN THE FOURTH DYNASTY

strong evidence based on astronomical data in support
of his argument, that the oldest temples in Egypt were
built upon sites which had been occupied by religious
edifices from the remotest antiquity, and the general
trend of the archaeological evidence which is now
forthcoming entirely supports this view, in the writer's
opinion.

We have already described the archaic character of
hieroglyphic writing under the first three dynasties.
In the period of the IYth Dynasty, although a few
archaic signs are still retained, the writing, as a whole,
had adopted its final hieroglyphic form, and had so far
developed that in the time of Assa, a king of the Vth
Dynasty, a cursive form of it, which is now commonly
known as " hieratic," had already come into use. The
use of the reed pen and ink was known in the time of
the 1st Dynasty, when flakes of stone and plaques of
ivory, etc., formed the materials chiefly used for writing
upon ; at a later period, which cannot, however, be
clearly indicated, the Egyptians discovered how to
prepare the layers of the stem of the papyrus plant for
writing upon. The oldest known example of a papyrus
written upon with ink is said to be the papyrus of
accounts in which the name of Assa is mentioned ; it is
written in hieratic, and portions of it are now preserved
in the Museum at Cairo. Of the literature of the
period the best known examples are the " Precepts of
Ptah-hetep," and the " Precepts of Kakemna," which
contain a remarkable collection of counsels, proverbs,

PTAH-HETEP THE MORALIST

147

and aphorisms of a religious and moral character, and
which illustrate the high morality the attainment of
which was the ideal of every cultured Egyptian of the
period. Now Ptah-hetep was, we know, a contemporary
of Assa, a king of the Yth Dynasty, and Kakenma
lived in the time of the YIth Dynasty, but we have no
contemporary copies of their works ; the oldest versions

Egyptian model of an ancient Egyptian house. I-Vth to Vlth Dynasty.
British Museum, No. 32,612.

known to us are contained in the famous Prisse
Papyrus, 1 and cannot be older than the time of the
Xllth Dynasty. That the form of the Precepts in
which we now have them is substantially that in

1 For the text see Prisse d'Aveimes, Facsimile cVvn Papyrus
Egyptien, Paris, 1847.

I48 THE MAXIMS OF PTAH-HETEP

which they left their authors' hands there is little

reason to doubt ; their character is best illustrated by

giving a few specimens of them : l — Ptah-hetep saitb,

" (1) god of the two crocodiles (i.e., Osiris), my lord,

" mature age turneth into old age, infirmity cometh

"upon man, and failing powers take the place of

" vigorous youth. Some [additional] failing cometh

" upon him each day, the eyes become dim and lose their

" power, the ears become stopped, and decline in strength

"advanceth upon him always. The mouth is silent,

" speech faileth, the memory faileth, and he remembereth

"not even [the matter of] yesterday. He hath pain in

"all his body : that which was once pleasant to him is

"now repulsive, for his palate hath lost the sense of

" taste. Old age bringeth miseries of every kind upon

" man ; his nostrils become stopped, and by reason of his

"failing strength he can hardly draw his breath."

Ptah-hetep saith to his son, "(2) Be not puffed up because

" of the knowledge which thou hast acquired, and hold

" converse Avith the unlettered man as with the learned ;

"for there is no obstacle to knowledge, and no handi-

" craftsman hath attained to the limit of the knowledge

" of his art. (5) If thou art in command of a company

" of men, deal with them after the best manner and in

" such wise that thou thyself mayest not be reprehended.

"Law (or, justice, or, right) is great, fixed and unchang-

1 Renderings are given by Chabas in the Revue Archeologique ,
1858 (Le pins ancien livre dii nionde, etude sur le Papyrns
Prisse) ; and Virey, Etudes sur le Papyrus Prisse, Paris, 1887.

THE MAXIMS OF PTAH-HETEP 149

" ing, and it hath not been moved since the time of Osiris.
" (6) Terrify not men, or God will terrify thee. (7) If
"thou art among a company of men and women in the
" abode of a man who is greater than thyself, take what-
soever he giveth thee making obeisance gratefully.
" Speak not oftener than he requireth, for one knoweth
" not what may displease him ; speak when he speaketh
"to thee, and thy words shall be pleasing unto him.
" (8) If thou art charged with a message from one noble-
" man to another, deliver it exactly as thou hast received
"it. (9) If thou art an husbandman, harvest the crop
" of the field which the Great God hath given unto thee.
" A man becometh a god when he is at the head of a
" tribe which putteth its trust in him. (10) In doing
"homage before a greater man than thyself thou art
"doing what is most pleasing unto God. (11) Labour
" diligently whilst thou hast life, and do even more than
" thou hast been commanded to do : waste not thy
"vigorous prime, for he who maketh a bad use of his
"time is reprehensible. Neglect not to add to thy
" possessions daily, for diligence increaseth wealth, but
" without diligence riches disappear. (12) If thou art a
"perfect (or, wise) man, bring up thy son in a manner
"which is pleasing to God. (18) If thou wouldst be
"held in esteem in the house wherein thou enterest,
" whether it be that of a nobleman, or of a brother, or of
" a friend, or any other abode in which thou goest, touch
"not the women. It is not in any way a good thing [to
" do], nay, 'tis a senseless act, for a thousand men have

150 THE MAXIMS OF PTAH-HETEP

" destroyed themselves and gone to their deaths for the
" sake of the enjoyment of a pleasure which is as fleeting
"as the twinkling of an eye. (19) If thou wouldst
" behave well and be free from all evil, keep thy temper,
" for this is a vice which leadeth to strife, and an ill-
" tempered man cannot continue to live. It divideth
"fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and it
"maketh the husband and the wife to hate each other.
" (21) If thou wouldst be wise, rule thy house, and love
" thy wife wholly and constantly. Fill her stomach and
"clothe her body, for these are her personal necessities ;
"love her tenderly and fulfil all her desires as long as
" thou hast thy life, for she is an estate which confer reth
" great reward upon her lord. Be not harsh to her, for
" she will be more easily moved by persuasion than by
"force; take thou heed to that which she wisheth, and
" to that to which her desire runneth, and to that upon
"which she flxeth her mind [and obtain it for her], for
" thereby shalt thou make her to stay in thy house. If
" thou resistest her will it is ruin [to thee] .... speak
"to her heart and show her thy love. (30) If thou hast
" become a great man having once been of no account,
" and if thou hast become rich having once been poor,
" and hast become the governor of the city, take heed
" that thou dost not act haughtily because thou hast
"attained unto this high position. Harden not thy
"heart because thou hast become exalted, for thou art
" only the guardian of the goods which God hath given
" unto thee. Set not in the background thy neighbour

PTAH-HETEP AND KAKEMNA

151

''who is as thou wast, but make thyself as if he were
"thine equal."

The " Precepts " of
Ptah-hetep seem to have
been written when their
author was an old man.
In his younger days he
was, undoubtedly, like his
successor Kakemna, one
of the principal nobles
of Pharaoh's court.
Ptah - hetep held the
dignities of " governor of

the city/' t\ <=> ® ,

1 ^

and chief minister,

and from the fact that
he calls himself " eldest
royal son of his body,"
he was probably of royal
descent; his other title,

"erpaha," Q -=^,i.e.,

- a _

"hereditary prince," in-
dicates that he was a
prominent member of
an important princely
family. Kakemna, besides being ivazir and governor of
the city, held the office of "judge," ^^ S3.

Hard stone figure of an offic'al called

Hapi. Vlth Dynasty.

British Museum, No. 32,190.

152 OFFICES AND TITLES

The highest rank which a man could hold under
the king was that of "erpa ha," which originally made
known that the man who held it was the " head " of
an independent clan or tribe, and that he had become
so by hereditary right ; but under the powerful kings
of the IYth, Vth, and Vlth Dynasties the " erpa ha "
became merely the title of the highest order of nobles.
The old feudal chief came to court from time to time
and tendered his homage to the king, but the later
nobles who held this rank came to court and stayed
there, and were buried near the pyramids of their
Pharaohs. During the period between the Vlth and
Xllth Dynasties, the "erpa ha" resumed his old
powers, and certain of them assumed the rank and
dignity of a king ; thus Antefa, who was " erpa ha "
of Thebes, placed both his name and his title within a
cartouche, and his successors, the Menthu-hetep kings
of the Xlth Dynasty, dropped their title "erpa ha,"
and proclaimed themselves kings of Upper and Lower
Egypt. The next highest dignity was apparently that

of "chancellor," \§^£\) f which was in existence as
early as the time of the 1st Dynasty ; after this came
the " smer uat/' It > a title which must mean
something like "only friend," i.e., a confidential adviser
of the king ; another title which was often borne by
the highest nobles and officials was "he who is set
over the secrets," ^ I n ^w*. A very ancient and

D

THE COURT OF THE KING

153

favourite title throughout all the early dynasties was

, i.e.,

Y

" suten rekk,"

" one known to the king " ;
it seems that at first this
title implied kinship to the
king, but subsequently it
meant little more than
an honourable distinction.
The above-mentioned titles
are those of most frequent
occurrence, but in addition
there were in common use
a * considerable number of
legal, military, priestly, and
civil titles, for the enumera-
tion of which there is no
space here.

The pomp and dignity
which surrounded the court
of the king of Egypt
greatly increased during
the period of the IYth and
Vth Dynasties. As early
as the beginning of the
IVth Dynasty he assumed
the title of "the golden
Horus," or "the Horns of

Anpu, an official. Vlth Dynasty.

British Museum, No. 32,187.

gold,"

and Assa seems to have been the first

(PhrtO

< .'

154 THE KING AS S0N 0F THE sun

kins to call himself "son of the Sim," fev. • under

the Vlth Dynasty the king was already held to be a
semi-divine being, and it is clear that his rank and
position were as exalted at that time as were those of
the great kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty at a later
period. The king having during his lifetime arrogated
to himself the attributes of a god, it was only natural
that worship should be paid to him after death ; hence
as early as the Illrd Dynasty we find that certain
priestly officials were set apart to perform the rites
which were due to the memory of deceased kings, e.g.,
Shera 1 at that time performed commemorative services
in honour of Sent, a king of the Unci Dynasty.

Such priests were maintained out of the revenues
with which the kings who built pyramids for them-
selves had endowed their funeral chapels, and out
of the offerings which were made in them by the
relatives of the dead and by devout folk. To the
service of each of the larger pyramids several priests
were attached, and there is evidence which shows that,
in the case of many of the more important kings, their
chapels were maintained, and services were regularly
performed in them through all periods of Egyptian
history until we reach the time of the Ptolemies. We
must not, however, forget that the nobles of the king,
and even the commonest person, became divine after

1 Parts of his tomb are preserved in the Museum of Cairo, in
the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and in the British Museum.

THE " SERVANT OF THE KA

155

death, but as when he was upon earth the king was
king of men, so in the world beyond the grave he was
still king, only there his subjects had acquired a divine
nature similar to
his own ; the king-
became Osiris, but
so also did the
meanest of his
subjects. But the
ordinary man was
naturally unable
to guarantee the
perpetuity of the
funeral services
which he wished
to have held in
his chapel, for,
whereas the king's
priests were court
officials, appointed
in succession to
carry on the tra-
dition of his wor-
ship, the priest of
the ordinary man,
i.e., the "hen ka,"
^0 , "the servant of the double," could only be that
man's direct descendant, and when his family died
out the services at his tomb necessarily came to an

The high-priest An-senf, and the lady Mersebes,~ f J

^ dJ J 0' VIth Dynasty -
British Museum, No. 13,320.

156 METHODS OF SEPULTURE

end, even if they had not ceased long before. The
office of the " hen ka " is one of the oldest connected
with the Egyptian religion, being the outcome of one
of its fundamental dogmas.

An examination of the tombs and funeral monuments
of the Egyptians of the Ancient Empire shows that the
old systems of burying the dead in contracted positions,
or in mutilated condition, which were in use among
the primitive inhabitants of the Nile Valley, and which
we have already described, continued in vogue, though
no doubt chiefly among the lower orders of society, until
well on in the IVth Dynasty. After this period, the
custom of burying the body at full length and lying
upon its back, which had apparently been introduced
by the "Followers of Horus," became universal, and
from this time onwards the art of mummifying the
human body becomes more and more highly developed,
and ceremonies connected with the depositing of the
body in the tomb are seen to be more and more elaborate.
The Pyramid Texts prove that in the case of kings the
funeral ceremonies were long and elaborate, and that
many of them were of a highly symbolic character ;
incense of several kinds was burnt, libations of wines
and other liquids were poured out, sacrifices were
offered, and suitable prayers and words of power were

recited alternately by the " Setem " priest, I ^ lj\ M£

(later " Sem "), and by the " Kher-heb " priest. In the
case of persons of lesser rank the ceremonies were

THE KING S DIVINE NATURE

*57

probably shorter, and as time went on they were re
duced to very simple forms.
An examination of the
monuments and other re-
mains of the period of
the IVth, Vth, and Vltli
Dynasties enables us to
obtain a glimpse of the
social condition of the
country at that time. The
king appears to have been
regarded as an autocrat
with a semi-divine nature,
and his will was performed
by a number of high offi-
cials, some of whom were
his kinsmen, and all of
whom regarded him as the
fountain of honour, and the
bestower of ranks, dignities,
and positions. Many of the
nobles who held various
offices at court were not
mere officials, but chiefs of
great power and importance
in their own nomes, and
were in fact the ancestors

of the great feudal princes with whom we become
acquainted under the Xlth Dynasty. A separate

Figure of an official in hard stone.

Vltli Dynasty.

British Museum, No. 32,188.

158 HIGH PRIESTS OF MEMPHIS AND HELIOPOLIS

priesthood can hardly as yet be said to have existed ;
the male head of every family was the priest (hen ka,
(Tj) of his ancestors, and the "Sem" and " Kher-
heb " priests were certainly at this time kinsmen of
the deceased. We have, it is true, vague indications of
the existence of a college of priests of Ea-Temu at
Heliopolis, under the headship of its chief official, who
was known as the " Great Two Eyes," or the " Great

Seer," "Ur-maa," ^ ^^_ V&, of Ea-Temu; this,

however, must have been a very different institution
from the powerful confraternities of later days, although
its influence was sufficiently great to place upon the
throne of Egypt a dynasty of kings who were devoted
to its interests. We also find that there existed at
Memphis the high priest of the god Ptah, whose official

title was the " Great Chief of the Hammer," ^* 8 f,

Ur-kherp-hem ; he must have controlled a consider-
able body of priests, but one which could not for a
moment be compared with that of the priests of Ea
even at this period. Commerce in the modern sense of
the term can hardly have existed at this early time, for
each of the great estates into which Egypt was divided
was self-supporting, and each produced sufficient for its
own needs. The common people lived on the estates on
which they were born in a state of absolute dependence
upon their lords, but they usually dwelt in their own
towns and villages, which were situated within the
boundaries of these estates. Under a strong central

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE

159

Government the condition of such people was, on the
whole, a happy one, and they appear to have been
humanely treated by their lords, who were not divided
from them by any differences of religion or class preju-

Alabaster vase. Vltli Dynasty. British Museum, No. 30,4.50.

dice ; but when the central Government fell into decay
and the Princes of Siut, the modern Asyut, warred
against the Princes of Thebes, both families acknow-
ledging the over-lordship of the kings at Herakleopolis,

l6o THE POSITION OF WOMEN

the condition of the "sekhti" H m Q Q Q ^ v&, i.e.,

\\ ^d^i H

" field man," or " fellah, " became indeed deplorable.
He was taken from his land, and sent to fight against
his fellow countrymen with whom he, personally, had
no quarrel, and meanwhile his honse and farm were
practically left to take care of themselves ; if he came
back unhurt it was often to find himself the prey of
some unjust steward or extortionate bailiff like Merui-
tensa in the story of the Peasant, 1 who took the
opportunity of the lord's absence to play the petty
tyrant. To the unique position held by women in
Egypt in the earliest times we have already alluded,
and the passage which has been quoted from the
Precepts of Ptah-hetep shows that the estimate which
the Egyptians had formed of the importance of a just
and proper treatment of women was far in advance of
that held by other nations of antiquity, and that it was
little inferior to our own.

1 See Proc. Soc. Bill. Arch., vol. xiv., June 14, 1892, p. 459 ff.

( i6i )

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEVENTH TO THE ELEVENTH DYNASTIES.

The information of an accurate character which we
possess concerning this period is exceedingly limited,
and it is impossible to give any connected account of
the succession and reigns of the kings. According to
the version of Manetho by Julius Africanus, the years
of the dynasties of this period are as follows : —

Vllth Dyn. From Memphis ; 70 kings in 70 days.
Vlllth Dyn. From Memphis ; 27 kings in 146 years.
IXth Dyn. FromHerakleopolis; 19 kings in 409 years.
Xth Dyn. FromHerakleopolis; 19 kings in 185 years.
Xlth Dyn. From Thebes ; 16 kings in 43 years.

The versions of Manetho given by Eusebius and
others differ so much from that of Julius Africanus that
it is quite clear that as far as this period is concerned the
figures have been garbled ; we are therefore driven to
rely for information about the period of these dynasties
almost entirely upon the few monuments which can with
safety be assigned to it. We are not in any way helped
in this difficulty by the King Lists which were compiled

VOL. II. M

162 DYNASTIES VII. — XI. [B.C. 3033

by the scribes of the XYIIItli and XlXth Dynasties.
The Tablets of Karnak and Sakkara are of very little
use for the whole period of the Middle Empire, for in
them the order of the kings is much confused, and as
said above, the reason in no way concerning us here,
they are manifestly incomplete. The Tablet of Abydos
is of considerable value here, for it gives us the names
of the following kings : —

*• TO^ f © I LJ 1 Ra-nefer-ka.

2- =jy| f © I LJ ^ J t)[)1 Ra-nefer-ka-Nebi.

3- M ( ©jU^^M l Ka-nefer-ka-Khentu.

4. ^^ fl^^ — 1 Meb-en-Hebu.

&' T2*R ( — « — I LJ J Se-NEFER-KA.

6. 4^ ( O "^ U 1 Ra-en-ka.

7 - %^ f O I U ^ 2^j Ra-nefer-ka-tererl.

8 " M 0^o U l Heru-nefer-ka.

9 - TOM oIUDDOO I J JRa-nefer-ka-Pepi-senb.

10- To} f © J LJ J — D \\ Ra-nefer-ka- annu.

B.C. 2500] DYNASTIES VII. — XI. 163

11. m (©ga bi- . . . . - KAU .

12. 4« f O J mm] Ra-nefer-kau.

13 « M CMS] ^RU-NEFER-KAU.

14 - 4w ( O I ^ LJ ] Ra-nefer-ari-ka.

15. 4w f O ^=^ ! 1 Ra-neb-kheru.

16. ^§ fo p ^ ul Ra-seankh-ka.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that these
names do not represent the full number of kings who
reigned during the period of the Yllth-XIth Dynasties,
and that we have here only a selection from them. The
Royal Papyrus of Turin does not help us to decide the
difficulties, although here and there the indications
which it gives are useful, e.g., it shows that Nitocris
was not the last sovereign of the YIth Dynasty. At
the end of the YIth Dynasty must probably be placed

an isolated king called 4s^ ( fl ^\ ^b ] I-em-hetep,

whose name is found on the rocks in the Wadi Ham-
mamat, where it seems to have been inscribed by the
"divine chancellor, the captain of the soldiers, Ka-

nefer," ^3^6 ^|\ T M£ . The two names Ra-neb-kha

164 HERAKLEOPOLITAN DYNASTIES [B.C. ?

or Neb-kha-Ra, Cq ^=^ S jL and Hebu-hen-nefer,
T J, or Hen-nefer-Heeu, which are attributed

to this period, are at present implaceable ; it is doubtful
if the latter name is that of a king at all. Of the kings
of the Vllth Dynasty the only inscribed remains known

are scarabs of Ra-en-ka or En-ka-Ra\, (q ^w^jjj,

and Ra-nefer-ka-Nebi or Nefer-ka-Ra-Nebi ; of the
VHIth Dynasty, the last which reigned at Memphis,
no remains or monuments of any kind whatsoever have
been identified, It seems very probable that during
the weak rule of the kings of the Yllth and VHIth
Dynasties, the princes of Herakleopolis, the Suten-henen,

9) A/ ^ A , or Henen-su of the hieroglyphic m-

T AMAM JJ W

scriptions, succeeded in gaining their independence, and
that they were the founders of the IXtli Dynasty, to
which must belong Khati and others.

NINTH AND TENTH DYNASTIES.
FEOM HERAKLEOPOLIS.

son of the Sun, Khati.

B.C. ?]

AKHTHOES

165

Khati, who is no doubt the Akhthoes,
'A^Oot]?, of Manetho, 1 is made known to
us by a bronze vessel, preserved in the
Museum of the Louvre, which has round its
upper part, in hollow work, the inscription,
"The living Horus, loved of the heart,
king of the South and North, Meri-ab-Ka,
lord of the city of the vulture and of the
mkri-ab-tatji, city of the uraeus, Meri-ab, son of the

the Horus name
of Khati.

' Sun, Khati, giver of life" ^^kWQ^

,W?¥S

BfA-°

Of Akhthoes Manetho says (Cory, op. cit., p. 106)
that he became more terrible than all those who went
before him, that he did evil unto the people in all
Egypt, and that afterwards he fell into madness
and was destroyed by a crocodile. The name of this.
king is found [upon a rock in the First Cataract, 3 a
fact which indicates that work went on in the quarries
there during his reign, and that he had consolidated
his power in the land sufficiently to carry on building
operations. The names of the immediate successors of
this king are unknown, unless we assume that certain
royal names which are found upon scarabs, apparently

1 See Griffith, Proc. Soc. Bill. Arch., vol. xiv. 40; it has been
suggested that Akhthoes is to be identified with the XovOrjp of
Eratosthenes (see Bunsen, Egypt's Place, vol. i. p. 704; and Petrie,
History, p. 115).

2 See Maspero, ibid., vol. xiii. p. 429.

3 See Sayce, Academy, 1892, p. 332.

i66

SCARABS OF MAA-AB-RA, ETC.

[B.C.

belonging to this period, represent them ; but it must
be borne in mind that the possibility exists that they
may belong to the period which lies between the XHIth
and XYIIIth Dynasties. The following are the names
to which we refer : —

ii'

o

LJ

Ka-Maa-ab.

ii

o

. _£

/vvv vv>

LJ

Ka-sekha-en.

1

o

Ka-nub-taui(?).

11

G

LJ

Ea-aa-hetep.

II

o

IP
LJ

Ea-kha-user.

1 British Museum, Nos. 30,510, 32,287, 32,363, 17,212.
- British Museum, Nos. 30,511, 28,201, 32,342.

3 British Museum, No. 30,512.

4 British Museum, No. 28,097-

5 British Museum, Nos. 32,331, 4110, 24,113.

B.C. ?] KA-MERI-RA 167

It must be pointed out that each of these names is
preceded by the title " neter nefer" i.e., ""beautiful
god," and if the scarabs on which these names occur
really belong to the period of the IXth Dynasty, this is
the earliest appearance of the title in question. It must
not be forgotten that this title was a very favourite one
in the XHIth Dynasty, from which fact it might be
argued that these scarabs and the kings whom they
commemorate in reality date from a period subsequent
to that of the Xlllth Dynasty. For the present, how-
ever, we may assume that they belong to the period of
the IXth Dynasty; one of the chief reasons for this
assumption is the striking resemblance of these scarabs
to those of the kings of the Vlth and Vllth Dynasties.
Besides this, it has been pointed out that Eratosthenes
mentions a king Meures, Mevprjs, 1 immediately after
Chouther, and it follows that if Ab-meri-Ra Khati be
Chouther, Maa-ab-Ra may very well represent Meures.
The next name which meets us on contemporaneous

monuments is that of 4=^ ( U ^ 001 Ra-ka-meri,

or Ka-meri-Ra, of whose reign we have an exceedingly
interesting monument in the tomb of Khati, son of
Tefaba, a prince of Siut. We know the names of three
of the princes of Siut at this period, i.e., Khati I.,
Tefaba, his successor, and Khati II., the son and suc-
cessor of Tefaba, who flourished in the reign of Ka-
meri-Ra. Khati I. was established as a prince by a

1 See Bunsen, ojg. cit., p. 705 j and Petrie, op. cii., 116.

l68 SYSTEM OF IRRIGATION OF KHATI I. [B.C. ?

king whose name is not mentioned, but who was probably
one of the successors of Ab-meri-Ka, and some details of
his life are afforded us by the inscriptions which he had
placed in his tomb. 1 Stripped of the naively conceited
phraseology of the Egyptian noble, his words tell us that
he occupied himself with cutting canals and attending
to the irrigation of his district, in the course of which
work he made dams and embankments, by which he
succeeded in raising the level of the waters of the Nile
to that of the lands at the foot of the hills, which before
his time had remained unwatered and therefore unpro-
ductive. He was rich in flocks and in herds, and his
crops were abundant, and with his earthly goods he
endowed the temple of his god. He was himself a
mighty warrior and skilled in the use of the bow and
the sword, and he raised a company of troops, which
consisted of hundreds of picked men from the North and
of thousands of bowmen from the South. He possessed
boats in large numbers wherein the king was pleased to
journey up and down the river. Khati I. received his

appointment as ha, ^=^ 5 prince, because he was a

just man, and because he had taken no part in any
rebellion against the king, and had remained consistently
loyal to his lord. He ends his inscription with the
words, " He (i.e., the king) set me at the head of his
" nobles who were arrayed in royal apparel, and he made

1 For the Egyptian texts see Griffith, The Inscriptions of Sitit and
Der Rifeh, London, 1889 ; and for translations see Griffith, B. Sf 0.
Record, vol. iii., and Maspero, Revue Critique, 1889, p. 410 ff.

B.C. ?] THE FLEET AND ARMY OF KHATI I. 169

" me to learn to swim with the royal children. I return
"thanks, and I have been free from rebellion against my
" master who brought me up when I was a child. Siut
" rejoices under my rule, Henen-su adoreth me, and the
" lands of the South and the North say, ' Whatsoever the
" 'prince commandeth, that is the command of Horus."'
The allusion which this prince makes to his picked men
from the North and his archers from the South is of
interest, for it shows that he was able to support his
loyal words by loyal deeds, and his forces on land and
his boats on the river made Khati I. a prince whose
friendship was greatly to be desired. It is easy to
understand from his reference to his own loyalty that
the condition of the country must have been in a very
unsettled state, and that dissension and strife prevailed
in all parts of it. The feeble Memphite kings had
allowed a number of petty chiefs to usurp gradually
very considerable powers, and when the Ylllth Dynasty
came to an end the tribes of the Delta asserted their
independence, and a violent struggle for the crown of
Egypt arose between the princes of Herakleopolis and
those of Thebes. Khati I. seems to have taken no active
part in any war against these princes of Thebes, but his
sympathies were with the princes of Herakleopolis, and
there is no doubt that his forces would have marched
to battle with theirs, had the princes of Thebes attempted
the invasion of the northern country on a large scale.

From the inscription in the tomb of Tefaba, the
successor of Khati I., we are able to see how matters

170 TEFABA'S ARMY DEFEATS THE THEBANS [BC. ?

developed in the reign of Ka-nieri-Ba. Tefaba says that
he was a benevolent man, and a man wise in counsel,
and a man useful in his town, and one who always
hearkened unto the cry of the afflicted, and who
never defrauded the widow. He was beloved of his
parents and their slaves, and he devoted himself to
redressing the injuries which had been inflicted upon
his people by soldiers or marauders. The condition
of the country under Tefaba's rule was so safe that a
man might lfe clown at night by the highway, and go
to sleep with as little concern at the thought of
danger as he would in his own house, and the flocks
and herds were as secure in the fields as if they, had
been in their own sheds ; the thief and the robber
became abominable men, and they no longer had power
to oppress any man. At length war broke out, and the
people of the districts from Elephantine northwards
came in a body to do battle against the princes of
Herakleopolis ; they were attacked by Tefaba's soldiers
and utterly defeated. Whenever Tefaba attacked the
town of an enemy he threw down its walls and took its
governor captive, and when he had defeated every chief
on the left bank of the river, he passed over to the
right, and did the same there ; he says that he was like
a bull [on the day of battle], and that he conquered
wheresoever he went. The boats of his adversary were
dashed to pieces against the river banks, his soldiers
became like bulls in the presence of a lion which is
about to leap upon them, he surrounded the town from

B.C. ?] KHATI II. PROTECTS THE KING 171

one side of it to the other, and he seized the enemy's
possessions and cast them into the flames. He declares
that he was able to effect all these things through the
counsels and plans of Apuat, the god of Thebes, and
that he overthrew the happiness of every place which
fought against the king ; that his progress through the
provinces of the South was like that of a flame of fire,
and that there was no part of the desert which was too
remote for the terror of him to penetrate. In his
success and prosperity Tefaba did not forget the gods
of his country, for he gave gifts to their temples and
caused religious ceremonies to be performed in their
honour.

The success which the princes of Herakleopolis
enjoyed in the time of Tefaba was continued under his
son and successor Khati II., who is declared to have
sprung from the bodies of five princes, and to have
been the sou of a prince, and the son of a daughter of
a prince, and the offspring of an ancient family which
had been the ruling power in Siut from the earliest
times. The inscription in his tomb states that he was
greatly beloved by Ka-meri-Ba, that he had spread
terror throughout all the land of Egypt, and that he
had inflicted punishment upon the country of the South.
It seems that the king had become unpopular with the
chiefs and nobles of Herakleopolis, and that eventually
he had to seek safety in flight to his friend Khati II.,
prince of Siut ; this redoubtable man assembled his
forces and collected his boats, and, having made the

172 KHATI II. RESTORES THE KING TO POWER [B.C. ?

king to take his seat in one of them, he escorted
Ka-meri-Ea down the river to his capital city, and
established him in the rule of his kingdom. When the
rebels saw the forces which accompanied the king they
trembled and were greatly afraid, and every town by
which he passed gladly submitted and made peace with
him ; on his arrival in his city the whole population
turned out to welcome him, women as well as men, and
old men as well as children. The king thus owed his
restoration to power entirely to the vigorous help of
the prince of Siut, and this fact shows how great was
the influence which Khati II. possessed in the land,
and the prominent part which he took in arranging the
government of his country. Had he been disaffected
when Ka-meri-Ea was driven out of his capital, his
troops and boats would probably have been placed at.
the disposal of the princes of Thebes, and the rule of
the princes of Herakleopolis would have ended much
sooner than it did.

We have already mentioned certain royal names
which are found only upon scarabs that have been
thought to belong to the period of the IXth and Xth
Dynasties because of the peculiar character of their
workmanship, and in respect of the names already
quoted there seems to be some reasonable ground for
this assumption ; but the same cannot be said of
another small group of names which are found
chiefly on scarabs that have also, on grounds of style
and workmanship, been attributed to this period.

B.C. ?] KHIAN, EMBRACER OF LANDS 173

The latter group consists of three names, i.e., (1)

w^ f © P 11 mm ^\ ^^ f® 1 1 "V — 1 Se-user-en-Ka
Khian, who took as his Horns name the title "Anq
atebu " 1 ft AAA/W A * " embracing lands," (2) 1 T Q_^\1 '
Uatchet, and (3) Qj ° ^1 3 Ipeq-Heru. The

first of these names is known to us from a mnch-broken
colossal statue of the king which was found at Bubastis
by M. Naville ; portions of a second statue were also
found, but the name of Khian, which must have been
inscribed upon it also, was erased, and an inscription of
Osorkon II. was cut over the older inscription. These
portions, including the head, which is probably to be
regarded as a portrait of king Khian, are now in the
British Museum ; 4 the portions of the first statue,
which still bear the name of Khian, are preserved in
the Museum of Cairo. Khian's name as " king of the
South and North," i.e., Se-user-en-Ra, occurs on a
small rough basalt lion, 5 which was obtained at Baghdad
by the late Mr. George Smith, and the name of the
king was found by Mr. A. J. Evans upon a jar lid
which he discovered in the course of his excavations
in the Mycenaean palace of Knossos (Kephala) in Crete.
On inscribed seals and cylinders Khian is described as

1 See Naville, Bubastis, 1891, plate 12.

2 British Museum, No. 32,319.

3 British Museum, Nos. 32,441, 32,344.

4 British Museum, Nos. 1063, 1064.

5 British Museum, l No. 987.

174

KHIAN, PRINCE OF DESERTS

[B.C. ?

r^^i

, i.e., "prince of the deserts " ;
ill

" heq semtu,"

this peculiar title, taken in connection with his remark-
able Horns name mentioned above, the foreign type of

Se-user-en-Ra Khian, King of Egypt. British Museum, No. 1063.

the name Khian, and the un-Egyptian character of his
portrait heads from Bubastis, as well as the fact that
his chief monuments are all found in Lower Egypt,

B.C. ?] khian's name at knossos 175

have been usually regarded as proofs that this king-
belonged to the Hyksos Dynasty. In late years,
however, it has been maintained, solely on the ground
of arguments based upon the style of his scarabs, that
he belongs to the period of the Xth Dynasty ; but such
arguments are inconclusive, for although these scarabs
do in many respects resemble those of the YIth and
Vllth Dynasties, and are very similar to those which
we have tentatively ascribed to the IXth Dynasty, yet
these resemblances are not strong enough to enable us
to set aside the weighty evidence which we have duly
set forth above, from which it may be assumed with
some show of reason that Khian was a Hyksos king.
This view receives very substantial confirmation from
Mr. Evans' discovery of Khian's name at Knossos, for
the oldest parts of the palace which he discovered there
may well be as old as B.C. 1800, the date which may
be roughly assigned to the Hyksos period. If the
scarabs of Khian belong, in reality, to the time of the
Hyksos, the scarabs of Maa-ab-Ka and other kings,
whom we have provisionally assigned to the IXth
Dynasty, may belong to a period subsequent to the
Xllth Dynasty. The scarabs of Ipeq-Heru and
Uatchet are identical in style with those of Khian,
and their names are of the same foreign character ; it
follows therefore that if Khian was a Hyksos king,
Ipeq-Heru and Uatchet were Hyksos kings, and they
must have reigned about the same time, i.e., about
B.C. 1800. We are, then, not justified in assuming

176 END OF THE EARLY EMPIRE [B.C. ?

that an invasion of Egypt by Asiatic tribes, who
entered the country by way of the Delta, took place in
the period between the Ylllthand Xlth Dynasties; the
only invasion of the kind known to us was that of the
Hyksos, which took place several hundreds of years
later.

Another invasion which was formerly ascribed to
this period, i.e., that of the " New Eace," who were
on insufficient grounds described as " Libyans," has
now for several years past been recognized as never
having taken place. The " New Eace " were simply, as
M. J. de Morgan has pointed out, the primitive Egyptians
who lived in the period preceding the 1st Dynasty.
The Xth Dynasty ends the Early Empire, the closing-
years of which were, as we have seen above, marked by
strife and civil war, caused by the persistent attempts
of the princes of Thebes, a city hitherto unknown in
Egyptian history, to obtain the mastery of the Two
Lands. The result is that the knowledge of this period
which we possess is of the scantiest description, but
the principal facts of which we can be certain, and the
theories upon which most reliance can be placed, will
be found to have been given above.

( *77 )

CHAPTER VII.

THE MIDDLE EMPIRE.

THE ELEVENTH DYNASTY. EEOM THEBES.

We have already mentioned that under the rule of
the kings of the Xth Dynasty, i.e., Ka-meri-Ra and his
predecessors, the princes of Siut formed a bulwark of
the kings at Herakleopolis against the persistent
attacks of the princes of Thebes. This city, which is
generally alluded to in the inscriptions of the period
as the " city of the south," now for the first time comes
into prominence, and prepares to assume the predominant
position which it occupied in Egyptian history for more
than two thousand years. Ancient Thebes stood on
both sides of the Nile, and was commonly called "Uast "

t • that part of the city which was situated on the

east bank, and which included the temples of Karnak and

nn | ^

Luxor, appears to have been called Apet, I Q \ I ^ ,

whence, by the addition of the feminine article Ta-,

° k^. > comes the Greek form of the name, Gr//3ai,

mentioned in the Iliad of Homer (ix. 381 if.), a passage

VOL. II. N

178 THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THEBES

which must elate, at the latest, from the IXth century
B.C. The Copts prefixed the feminine article to the
name Apet, and called the city Tape, which is not
a corruption of the Greek form, but is derived directly
from the old Egyptian words Ta-apet. The cuneiform
inscriptions and the Hebrew Scriptures call it Ni' and
" No" (Ezekiel xxx. 14), i.e ; , the Egyptian word "Nut,"

® , "city," that is to say, "The City" par excellence;

and " No- Anion," i.e.,, the Egyptian " Nut- Amen,"

® ^^ J, that is to say, "The City of the god Amen";

the later Greek and Eoman writers call it Diospolis, or
Diospolis Magna, because of the identification of the
god Zeus with Amen, the king of the gods of Egypt.
It is impossible to say when Thebes was founded.
Diodorus says that it was the most ancient city in
Egypt ; some say that, like Memphis, it was founded by
Menes, and others, that it was a colony from Memphis.
So far, however, its name has never been found in
any inscription anterior to the Xth Dynasty. The
spot upon which ancient Thebes stood is admirably
adapted for the site of a great city. The mountains on
the east and west side of the river sweep away from
it, and leave a broad plain on each bank of several
square miles in extent. The great god of Thebes was

called "Amen,"(l *fl, a name which is said to

mean the "hidden god" ; his name is mentioned in the
religious texts of the Vltli Dynasty, but only as an
inferior deity, who occupied an unimportant position in

AMEN OR AMEN-RA 179

the theological conceptions of the priests of Heliopolis.
Originally he was of far less importance in the country
of the south than Min, or Amsu, the ithyphallic god,
and Menthn of Hermonthis, and Horns of Edfu.
Under the Xlth Dynasty, when the Theban princes
first assumed the rank and titles of kings, he first
acquired as the local god of their city a position of
prominence, which was almost equal to that of the old
local god of the Thebaid, Menthu, whom the princes
of the Xlth Dynasty specially venerated. Under the
Xllth Dynasty Amen became the chief god of the
Thebaid, and the cult of Menthu declined, the chief
attributes of this god being absorbed by Amen, with
whom Min, or Amsu, was also gradually more or
less identified. The kings of the Xllth Dynasty
founded a shrine in honour of Amen in a part of Thebes
now called Karnak, and from this time down to the
Ptolemaic period the Temple of Amen became the
centre of the religious life of all Egypt. Under the
XVIIIth Dynasty Amen usurped the position of the
chief god of Egypt by entirely absorbing the god Ra,
becoming henceforth Amen-Ra, and taking over all
his attributes and the whole of his cult; from now
onwards his official title is "Amen-Ra, king of the
gods, lord of the thrones of the world.'"' His wife Mut
is often mentioned under the Xllth Dynasty, but the
cult of their son Khonsu remained unimportant until
the time of the XXth Dynasty.

The princes of Thebes who fought against the

l80 PRINCE ANTEFA

princes of Siut like theni bore the title of " erpa ha,"

u e =^ , or " hereditary chief." One of these princes

who is known to us, and who may very well have been
a contemporary of the princes of Siut whose names
have been mentioned above, bore the name of Antefa,

A ° I, It is not known which of his successors

was the first to assume the title of " King of the
South and North," but it is probable that he was one
of the group of kings, of whom each bore the name of
Menthu-hetep, whose reigns must be assigned to the
Xlth Dynasty. The authorities for the reconstruction
of the history of this dynasty are few, and the King-
Lists drawn up in the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties
almost entirely fail us. For this period the Tablets of
Karnak and Sakkara are useless, for though they supply
the names of kings of the Xlth, Xllth, and following
Dynasties, these names are not given in any consecutive
order, and to follow the guidance of the Lists here is to
be misled. It has been generally held that a series of

kings, each of whom bore the name of Antef, l\ Q ,

which name was sometimes elaborated into Antef-aa,

A ^ <-=*, formed, together with the series of

Menthu-hetep kings already mentioned, the kings of
the Xlth Dynasty ; but there seems now to be no doubt
that this arrangement of the kings of that dynasty is
erroneous. It is certain that the Menthu-hetep kings
belong to the Xlth Dynasty, but it is by no means

THE PRENOMENS OF THE ANTEF KINGS l8l

certain that the Antef kings do, for the following-
reasons. In the first place, the prenomens, or names
which the Antefs bore as kings of the South and North,

e.g., Seshes-her-her-maat-Ka ( © f ^ ^ y * "^ ,

and Seshes-ap-maat-Ka ( O I v 3^ l , and

the Horus name of Heru-uah-ankh, v\ Y ■¥■, are

entirely different in character from the simple preno-
mens of the Menthu-heteps, such as Neb-hetef

(^37 ^n]' anc ^ Ra-neb-taui ( G "s37 == jL and

Neb-kheru-Ka f© ^3^1 J; and whereas the latter

are of the type of the names of the kings of the Early
Empire, the prenomens of the Antefs strongly resemble
those of the kings of the Xlllth Dynasty, and are
utterly unlike any name belonging to the Early Empire,
or to the first years of the Xllth Dynasty. Further,
some of the Antefs added to their names the epithet
" aa," ^=>, " Great," which was an important element
in the prenomens of the Hyksos monarchs, and was
adopted by the " Taa " kings of the XVIIth Dynasty,
and was not fashionable at any other period. Another
reason for assigning the Antef kings to the period
between the Xlllth and XVIIth Dynasties may per-
haps be deduced from the shape of their coffins.
Under the Early and Middle Empires rectangular
wooden coffins with flat wooden covers were in general

l82 THE SCARABS OF THE ANTEFS

use for nobles and men of high rank, and no example of
a coffin made in the shape of a mummy with a human
face is known to belong to these early periods ; but the
Antef kings were buried in coffins of this latter class and
not in the old-fashioned rectangular chests. The coffin
in mummy form is first found in general use at the
beginning of the period of the XVIIIth Dynasty, and
it is somewhat difficult to assume that the coffins in
which the Antefs were found do not belong to the
period immediately preceding. It may further be noted
that the style of the scarabs of the Antefs, e.g., of

( O rwn |$ I ] Nub-kheperu-Eci, is much more elaborate

than that of the scarabs of the Menthu-heteps, which
resemble those of the Early Empire. Finally, there
must be taken into consideration the fact that a decree
dated in the 3rd year of Nub-kheperu-Ka Antef is cut
on a doorway of Usertsen I., a king of the Xllth
Dynasty, at Coptos, which proves that JSTub-kheperu-Ka
Antef reigned after Usertsen I. An attempt has been
made to explain away this deduction by supposing that
the existing inscription is a copy of the original decree
cut in or after the time of Usertsen, but it is extremely
improbable that such a copy would have been inscribed
in such a place. The above reasons seem to us to be
sufficient for placing the Antef kings at the beginning
of the XVIIth Dynasty, but because general Egypto-
logical tradition assigns them to the Xlth Dynasty, we
treat of their reigns here before we discuss the kings

THE ANTEF-AA KINGS 183

who undoubtedly belong to the Xlth Dynasty. The
names of the kings which should be transferred to the
XYIIth Dynasty are as follows : —

, m (ana ¥ era Ki -

SESHESH-HER-HER-MAA.T, SOn of the

Sun, Antef-aa (I).

2 ' ^ G S ^1 Son of tlie Sun > Antef-aa ( n )•

>•« GfXID^ CUE]

Ra - seshes -AP- Maat, son of the Sun,
Antef-aa (III.).

im [ ^ j] *2~ ^J Son of tlie Sun '

Antef-aa (IV.), with the Horus
name Uah-ankh.

if

kheperu, son of the Sun, Antef,
with the Horus name Nefer-

KHEPERU.

Of Antef-aa I. the onlv monument known is his
coffin, which is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre;
this coffin is made of wood, the face being painted
black, and it is ornamented with feather work. Dr.
Birch, who described it and translated : the hieroglyphic

1 Aegyptisclie Zeitschrift, 1869, p. 52.

184 THE COFFIN OF ANTEF-AA II.

texts inscribed upon it, thought that the cartouche and
the royal name had been added at a period subsequent
to the lines of inscription. The texts contain addresses
to the deceased king in the character of Osiris.

Of Antef-aa II. also the only monument known is
his coffin, which resembles that of his brother Antef-aa I.
in shape and character, but differs from it in respect
of ornamentation ; instead of being covered with a
design of coloured feather work it is gilded all over. 1
It also is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre.
The hieroglyphic inscription upon it contains a prayer

to Anubis, lord of Sepa,

I /t< , and mentions

the fact that the coffin was provided for Antef-aa II. as

k, n /WWV\

f— n K^ V v& k^. 2 On

it Isis and Nephthys address the deceased king, saying,
" We place our arms as protectors of thee, Osiris, king
Antef-aa mad-kheru." 3

Of Antef-aa III. the principal contemporaneous
monument is his gilded coffin, which is preserved in the
British Museum (No. 6652). The uraeus, or serpent,
which originally surmounted the forehead is wanting.

1 " II est dore et decore d'ailes qui enveloppent et protegent le
corps du defunt." Pierret, Recueil, p. 86.

2 Birch, ibid., p. 52.

3 These words are always added after the names of the blessed
dead. They mean the state of knowledge which will enable a man
to utter commands, whatever they may be, in such a manner as
will cause them to be carried out by those to whom they are
addressed, whether gods or devils.

THE COFFIN OF ANTEF-AA III. 185

The face appears to be a portrait of the deceased ; the
eyes and eyelids are made of black, white, and blue
obsidian, inlaid, and closely resemble those found in the
limestone statues of the earliest dynasties. The
feather work and star ornaments appear to be character-
istic of the period of the coffins. The inscriptions are
addresses to the king by the goddesses Isis and
Nephthys, and read : "We bring thy hands to thee as
"we did for Osiris, and we grant UDto thee a happy
"burial; thy heart is in thy body, say Isis and
" Nephthys." In the inscription at the foot the god-
desses say, " We come, and we embrace thy bones for
" thee, Antef-aa, thou king of the South and North."
In the Abbott Papyrus (British Museum, No. 10,221)
we have a reference to the tomb of this king, which was
examined officially during the trial of the robbers of the
royal tombs at Thebes to see what damage, if any, had
been done to it by them, and in the document which
records the examination is the following entry : — " The

" pyramid tomb (mer T 1\ <z=> A ) of the king of the

" South, Ea-seshes-em-apu-Maat (life, strength, health!),
"the son of the Sun, Antuf-aa (life, strength, health !),
" was found to have been actually broken into by the
" hand of the robbers at the place where the stele of the
"pyramid is placed. Having been examined on this
" day it was found to be intact, for the robbers did
" not know how to make a way into it." l From this it

1 See Maspero, Enqiiete Judiciaire, Paris, 1871, p. 17.

l86 ANTEF-AA IV. AND HIS DOG BEHUKA

seenis that the robbers tried to effect an entry by the
side of the stele, and that they did some damage is
evident from the nse of the word utennu x in the
inscription.

The name of Antef-aa IV. as king of the Sonth and
North is unknown to us. The tomb of this king is
mentioned in the Abbott Papyrus, where we have the
following entry : — " The tomb of the king of the South,
" An[tef]aa (life, strength, health !), which is [situated]
" to the north of the Temple of Amen-hetep (life, strength,
" health !), of the court-yard of the tomb. The tomb hath
" been broken into at the place which faceth that wherein
" the sepulchral stele hath been set up. The image of
"the king on the stele is represented in a standing
" position, and be hath his dog, which is called Behuka,

" J 8 ^— ^^v^V' between his legs. Having

" been examined on this day, it was found to be intact." 2
This king built for himself a brick tomb on the western
bank of the Nile, at a place which is almost exactly
opposite the modern village of Karnak, and not far
from Der al-Bahari, and here it was discovered by the
late Brugsch Pasha in the year 1860 ; the modern name
of the site is Drah abu'l-Nekka. This tomb consisted
of an unbaked brick pyramid, each side of which at the
base did not measure more than about fifty feet. The

i Vftv aa/naaa 6>V ^ f] f w h ich m eans "to overthrow," "to

ruin."

2 Maspero, op. cit., p. 16.

THE STELE OF ANTEF-AA IV. 187

pyramid was built on the rock, and the chamber in
which the mummy lay was hewn either out of the rock
entirely, or partly out of the stone foundations of the
pyramid and partly out of the rock. The tombs of this
class and period which were made for the Antefs and
their immediate successors consisted of unbaked brick
buildings, which were either pyramids or had pointed
roofs like pyramids. In a chamber in the building itself,
or in a grave in the foundation or solid rock, lay the
mummy ; on one side of the building was the funeral
chapel, which joined on to it, and at the end of this
chapel, fixed in the tomb-building itself, was the
sepulchral stele ; in this chapel funeral offerings were
made by the relatives and priests of the deceased king,
and prayers were said. Sepulchral buildings of this
kind were not oriented on any uniform plan, and they
were rarely as much as thirty-five feet high, and stone
was used but sparingly in their construction. The
mummy-chamber was always carefully closed, and was
usually approached by means of a square vertical or
inclined shaft; in the mummy-chamber itself the objects
of funeral furniture, i.e., vases, tools, weapons, wheat,
bread, fruit, etc., were deposited, and such things have
never been found in the upper or outer chamber of the
building, which was reserved for the visitors who came
to pray there on certain prescribed days. 1

The Stele of Antef-aa IV., to which reference is

1 See Mariette, Trans. Soc. Bill. Arch., vol. iv. p. 194.

l88 THE HUNTING DOGS OF ANTEF-AA IV.

made in the Abbott Papyrus, was found by Brugsch in
the upper chamber of the tomb, and is of very consider-
able interest. The upper part of the stele was broken
away, as well as parts of the seven vertical lines of inscrip-
tion which were cut to the left of the figure of the king.
In front of the left leg of the king are three dogs, and be-
tween his legs is another. The first dog is called Behukaa,

J 9 <g\ ( ^>—3 , which is clearly the dog referred

to in the Abbott Papyrus, although his name is mis-
spelled by the XXth Dynasty scribe, and he does not
occupy the position which is assigned to him in the legal
report. He was probably the most famous of the dogs
of Antef-aa IV., and by his name and peculiarity enabled
the tomb to be at once recognized. 1 The second dog is

called Abaqeru, T 1 ^\ <r^> <^-3 , 2 the third'Pehetes,
C V-?, and the dog between the legs of the king Teqru

ru-

^ J£=& ^=S> behind the king stands the figure of a man

whose name seems to have been Tekenru, ^3^ <z^> ^v\ ,

/WW\A 21

and who probably held the office of master of the royal
hounds. Three of the dogs have epithets applied to
them on the stele which probably refer to their physical
powers and characteristics ; thus the first is said to be
"Mahetch" the third " Qemu" and of the fourth it is said

1 Birch, Trans. 80c. Bill. Arch., vol. iv. p. 174.

2 M. Maspero compares this word with the Berber name for
greyhound, " abaikour" ; Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. v. p. 127.

ashur-bani-pal's hunting dogs i8g

" uhat neb khanfet" 1 but the meanings of these words
are uncertain. In connection with the dogs of Antef-aa
IV. we are reminded of the fact that fine terra-cotta
models of Ashur-bani-pal's dogs were found, with the
inscribed tablets and fragments among the ruins of this
king's palace at Kuyunjik, or Nineveh. On each dog
is either a name or a title, e.g., "capturer of foes," 3
" biter of foes," 3 " making the evil to go forth," 4 and
thus it appears that the same views in respect of dogs
of the chase were held by a king of Egypt and a king
of Assyria. The inscription which accompanies the
figure of the king is, as has been said, mutilated, but
from what remains of it we learn that Antef-aa IV. had
provided the temple of Amen at Thebes with libation
vessels of great price, and had built up the divine houses
of the gods, and raised their battlements, and established
offerings in perpetuity, and had captured the city of
Abydos, and entered into its secret places ; having done

1 According to Dr. Birch, Mahetch means "white antelope";
Qemu, "black"; uhat neb khanfet, "cutting off all under his
breath," and Abaqeru, "pied Sphinx." There is no proof that all
these dogs have Libyan names.

4 ^ ^ !*-$=■ K ^THPHf !**■ ^T- The names of

the other two dogs are £^ ^J ^||<y JJ>-J ^ ^- J^<|

^tT ^ttJ and t±=!T Hf HHMf t=T Ml> Le -> Epar -

tallic-ebush-kaka, and Da-an-ri-gish-shu.

19° THE TOMBJDF ANTEF V.

great good to his city, lie arranged that his son should
succeed him, and the inscription declares that the tablet
was set up in the fiftieth year of the king of the South
and North, the son of the Sun, An-aa, i.e., Antef-aa. 1
Following the royal name is the title " nem mestu,"

H I, i.e., "repeater of births," the allusion being to

the idea that the king was like the Sun-god Ka who
was reborn daily; this title became a great favourite
with the kings of the Xllth Dynasty.

Of Antef V., the last of the series of kings bearing
this name, we also have mention in the Abbott
Papyrus, where we find the following entry : — " The
"tomb of the king of the South, Nub-kheperu-Ka (life,
" strength, health !), son of the Sun, Antuf (life, strength,
" health !), was found to have been actually broken into
" by the hand of the robbers, who have made a breach in
"the outer covering thereof to a depth of two cubits
" and a half, and also an opening one cubit (in length or
" breadth) in the outer hall of the tomb of Aurei, the
" chief of the supply of offerings to the temple of Amen,
" which was destroyed. It (i.e., the mummy-chamber)
" was intact, the robbers not having known how to force
" an entrance therein." 2 The tomb of this king was dis-
covered by Mariette, who found in front of it two small
obelisks, one of which was about eleven feet high, and
the other a little higher, and who mentions that there

1 A drawing of the stele is given by Mariette, Monuments Divers,
plate 49.

2 Maspero, op. cil., p. 17.

THE OBELISKS OF ANTEF V.

igi

was upon one of them an inscription which recorded
their restoration by a later king, perhaps Kameses IX. 1
The remains of the obelisks were despatched by boat to
the Bulak Museum in 1881, but, according to Mariette,
were lost at Kamula by the foundering of the boat
which contained them, owing to the stupidity of the
captain. From the inscriptions on these obelisks,
which were published by Mariette, 2 we learn that the
Horns name of Antef was Nefer-kheperu, and that he

adopted the old title V\£, and also called himself

" beautiful god, lord of the two lands, the lord making
things " 3 (i.e., creation), and the " King of the South
and North who resteth upon his throne." On the side
of one of the obelisks his names and titles were

grouped, as shown by the ac-
companying block. The text of
an interesting decree dated in
the third year of the reign
of this king Antef was cut, ap-
parently during his lifetime, upon
the side of a gateway of the
temple which was dedicated to
the god Min, or Amsu, at Coptos
Names and titles of by Usertsen L, and from it we

Antef. . . . _ .,

gam some interesting details of
a matter which took place concerning the Temple

1 See Mariette, op. cit., p. 16.

Op. cit., plate 50.

M

ig2 THE TEMPLE OF AMSU AT COPTOS

of Amsu in that city, and we may perhaps also
gather from it an indication that Antef reigned
after Usertsen I., and not before, as has been
commonly supposed. The decree is dated on the
25th day of the third month of the season Pert,
and is described as a royal decree addressed to the
chancellor and ha priest of Coptos Amsu-em-hat,

^? \t\ ~=^ and to the royal son in command at

r _M^ o i'

Coptos Qa-enen A

AMAM

AAAAAA , and to the chancellor
i i i

Menkhet Amsu o ^Sp, and to the scribe of the

temple Nefer-hetep-ur T 7) , and to all the soldiers

of Coptos, and to each and every man employed in the
service of the temple of every rank and grade whatso-
ever. The text continues : — " This decree cometh unto
"you to cause you to know that my Majesty (life,
"strength, health!) hath made to come [unto you] the
" scribe and divine chancellor of Amen [called] Amen-sa,
" and the chief inspector Amen-user to make an inspec-
" tion of the temple of Amsu. Now, inasmuch as an
" officer of the temple of my father Amsu came unto my
" Majesty (life, strength, health!), saying, 'A wicked act 1
" ' hath been committed in the temple, that is to say,
" c the man whose name is Teta, the son of Amsu-hetep,
" ' hath received an enemy [therein],' come, throw ye him
" upon the ground in the temple of father Amsu, turn ye

1 Literally " evil speech " ® ^ & J f\

^s*'

B.C. ?] THE DECREE OF ANTEF AT COPTOS I93

" liini out of the exalted position which he holdeth in the
" temple, and [his] son's son, and his offspring's offspring.
" Hurl ye them forth on the ground [outside the temple],
" let his allowance of bread be taken away from him, let
"his portion of meat from the holy offerings-be cut off,
" and let his name be no more had in remembrance in
" this temple, even according to that which is done unto
"any man who is like unto him, and who rebelleth and
" becometh a foe of the god. Erase ye whatsoever he
" hath written in the temple of Amsu and everything
" likewise which he hath written in the double white
" house (i.e., treasury) . And any king or any noble who
" shall allow Teta to be reconciled unto him shall never

" receive the White Crown Q , and shall never bear [on

"his head] the Ked Crown \/ , and he shall never take

" his seat upon the Horus throne of the divine ones who
"live; and the Vulture goddess (Nekhebet) and the
" Uraeus goddess (Uatchet) shall never be propitiated by
"him [or show him] their love. And every governor or
" ha prince who shall come to the Lord (life, strength,
"health!) to sue for peace on his behalf shall be com-
" pelled to make over his menservants and maidservants,
" and his goods and possessions, and his fields as a divine
"oblation to father Amsu of Coptos, and during the
" lifetime of such a man none of the kinsfolk, either of
"his father or of his mother, shall occupy that exalted
"position. And, moreover, the dignity [which Teta
" held] shall be transferred to the chancellor and over-
vol. 11. o

IQ4 THE DEPOSITION OF TETA [B.C.?

" seer of tlie palace, Amsu-em-hat, and there sliall be
" given unto him the bread and the meat of the holy
" offerings which appertain thereunto according to the
"regulations which stand written in the books of the
" temple of father Amsu of Coptos, and unto [his] son's
" son, and unto his offspring's offspring." l Whether the
offence committed by the delinquent was connected
with blasphemy or with rebellious conduct against the
king cannot be said, but it seems much more likely that
Teta had made cause with a heretic than with a mere
enemy of the king ; expulsion from the service of the
temple, with the consequent loss of rank, position, and
emoluments accruing therefrom, was a meet punish-
ment for blasphemy or heresy, and it seems most
probable that the priest who uttered words of treason
or the like against the divine majesty of the king of
the South and North would have swiftly received the
punishment of death and not a mere deprivation of
priestly office. In connection with king Antef may
also be mentioned the poem of lamentation, or Maneros's
Dirge, 2 which is said to have been [written] in front of
the harper in the temple of the blessed king Antef.
The ideas set forth in this interesting composition are
as follows : — " It is a fortunate lot for man that it hath
" been decreed that as one man hath passed away

1 The slab bearing this decree is now in the Museum at Gizeh,
and the text is given by Petrie, Koptos, plate 8.

2 See Herodotus II. 79. This dirge was said to have been called
after Maneros, a son of the first king of Egypt, who died in his
early youth, and is analogous to the Cyprian Linos, or Ailinos dirge.

B.C.?] THE LAMENT OF THE HARPER 195

" another hath taken his place. The gods who lived in
" olden times and who now rest in their tombs, and the
" saints and blessed dead who lie in their graves, built
" houses, but they no longer exist, and what hath be-
" come of them ? The writer hath heard the words of
" I-em-hetep x and Herutataf, 2 but what hath become of
" their places ? Their walls are overthrown, and their
"places no longer exist, and they are as if they had
" never been ; and no one corneth [from the dead] to give
" us information concerning them, or to speak of their
" qualities, or to bring comfort to our heart and to lead
" us unto the place whither they have gone. But let
" thy heart be at rest, and let it forget these things, and
" follow thou its desires as long as thou livest. Put
" scented unguents upon thy head, and array thyself in
" apparel of the finest byssus cloth which hath been
" steeped in the choicest perfumes. Go on, and enjoy
" thyself more than thou hast enjoyed thyself up to this
"present, and let not thine appetite for enjoyments fail,
"and according to the dictates of thine heart arrange
" thine affairs upon this earth in such a way that thou
" mayest follow after the wish of thine heart and the
" gratification thereof. The day will come to thee when
" thou wilt not hear the voice, and when he whose heart
"is at rest shall not hear the voice of those who weep ;
" and lamentations avail not him that is in the tomb.

1 A man of great learning who nourished during the period of
the Early Empire.

2 The son of Khufu or of Men-kau-Ra, the editor or author of
certain chapters of the Book of the Dead.

ig6 PRINCE Antefa [B.C. ?

" Enjoy thyself, and be diligent in thine enjoyment, for
" no man can carry his possessions away with him; and
" behold, none who goeth thither cometli back again." ]
The above ideas, expressed in different words, were
great favourites with the Egyptians, and they are
reproduced in the Song of the Harper and other
similar compositions. 3

The above four kings who bore the name of Antef-aa,
and their successor Nub-kheperu-Ba Antef, form, as we
have said before, a single group of kings, the date of whose
reigns is to be assigned probably to the period which
lies between the Xlllth and XVIIth Dynasties. We
have now to describe what is known of the reigns of
the undoubted true kings of the Xlth Dynasty. The
founder of the Dynasty was, most probably, the local
chief of the Thebai'd Antefa, whose titles were " erpa
ha," or hereditary chief, "great prince of the nome of
11 the Thebaic!, the filler (i.e., the satisfier) of the heart of
" the king, the controller of the gates of the Cataract,
" the support of the South, making his two banks 3 of

1 See Goodwin, Trans. Soc. Bill. Arch., vol. iii. p. 386; and
Maspero, Etudes Egyptiennes, torn. i. fasc. 2, p. 178 ff. ; the latest
edition of the Egyptian text and a German translation will be
found in Miiller, Die Liebespoesie cler alten Aegypter, p. 29.

2 A complete drawing of the stele will be found in Mariette,
Monuments Divers, plate 50.

3 The title "neb taui," ^=^ ^= "lord of the two lands,"
always means the two banks of the Nile, and here the fact is
emphasized by the determinative 3=r ; the title should be dis-
tinguished from "neb taiu " v. y c ^= > , = "lord of lands,"

i.e., of the world.

B.C. ?] MENTHU-HETEP I. I97

" tlie Nile to live, chief of the priests, and venerated in the
" presence of the great god, 1 the lord of heaven, Antefa."
<=> jK&p^^ (ft a o=k n a

lllllllll

Sli'flMTS-k—l!

On his stele

we see this prince seated in a shrine on a chair, beneath
which is his favourite dog. One man standing before
him is making offerings, another, who stands behind
him, is fanning him, and a third, also behind him, is
holding his staff and his sandals. Elsewhere on the
stele we see servants slaughtering an animal and bringing
offerings of all kinds to him. 2 Antefa seems to have
ruled the Thebaid under theHerakleopolite kings of the
Xth Dynasty, and it was either he or one of his
immediate descendants who assumed the title of king,
although there seems to be no authority for putting his
name in a cartouche. Antefa was succeeded in the rule
of Upper Egypt and of the whole country by an
independent king called :

1- H} f ^ "ri ^ S ^1 Neb-hetep, son of the
Sun, Menth-hetep.

1 I.e., the god Osiris.

2 For the enumeration of them see Wiedemann, Aeg. Gescli.,
p. 225.

ig8 WORKS OF MENTHU-HETEP II. AT HAMMAMAT [B.C.?

Menthu-hetep I. adopted the ancient

title j^P , which had been borne by his

predecessors of the Early Empire, and for
his Horns name he arrogated to himself
the title " divine white crown," which he

N theHOTus H ' a l so placed before his title of King of the
MentS-Vetep South and North. He carried on works in
the quarries in the First Cataract and also
in the Wadi Hammamat, for his names and titles are
found at those places cnt in the rocks. On the Island
of Kunnssaw in the First Cataract his cartouche is
found inscribed above figures of the deities Khnemu,
Amsu, and Satet, and enough remains of the inscrip-
tions to show that these gods promised to set all
"foreign lands under his sandals." On the same
island his cartouche is found with figures of the deities
Menthu, Amsu, and Net, or Neith, and beneath the
feet of Amsu are piled fifteen bows to indicate the
various barbarian countries which these deities will
make subject unto the king. In the Wadi Hammamat
is a scene on a rock, in which the king is repre-
sented in the act of making an offering to the
dual god Amsu-Heru of the double city of Coptos. 1
The working of the quarries by this king indicates
that he must have built temples in honour of the
gods.

1 Copies of the three scenes are iu Lepsius, Denkmiiler,
ii. 150.

B.C. ?] AMEN-EM-HAT THE MINING ENGINEER igg

taui, son of the Sun, Menthu-hetep.

Menthu-hetep II. adopted the titles
of the ancient kings, and for his Horns
name he bestowed upon himself the title
"lord of the two lands "; he was the first
king known to us to call himself "gods

Neb-taui, the 1 1 ^

Horusnameof of gold," I . Of the details of the

Menthu-hetep ° ' H^OTi

reign of this king nothing is known, and
whether he fought with any of Egypt's hereditary foes
cannot be said ; we know, however, that he carried on
great works in the famous quarries in the Wadi Harn-
marnat, for no less than six important inscriptions con-
cerning him were found 'there. 1 He sent a very high
official called Amen-em-hat, whose titles are set forth at
great length in an inscription dated on the 15th day of the
second month of the season Shat in the second year of
the king's reign, 3 to this quarry to bring back for him a
huge sarcophagus and blocks of stone to be worked into
objects employed in temples and tombs ; one block of
stone which he got out of the quarry in a few days

measured 4 x 8 x 2 cubits, ' n <=^> I x <z^> Mil.

TTif — ° mi _ — D
Of greater interest is the record preserved in another

1 Lepsius, Denkmaler, ii. 149. - Ibid., inscription e.

200 MENTHU-HETEP III. [B.C. 2533

inscription 1 which tells how the king ordered his men

to make a well ten cubits square I ' n <=> I H ,

so that the workmen and their beasts might not die of
thirst. The year in which this useful piece of work
was done is not mentioned, but it seems most likely
that the work of cutting the well was superintended by
the official Amen-em-hat, especially as he had with him
several thousands of men, including three thousand
carriers or boatmen. It is interesting to note that
in the same inscription Menthu-hetep II. mentions
that he was " born of the royal mother Amam,"

II /www ^ o a\ I A o v\ lb, a fact which, as

Wiedemann pointed out in 1884, indicates that he
succeeded to the throne by virtue of the royal rank of
his mother. Menthu-hetep was a devoted worshipper
of Amsu, and in a rock scene in the same place he
is represented in the act of making an offering of
incense to this god, who is ithyphallic, and wears
plumes like the god Amen, and has his right hand
raised; this took place in the second year of the
king's reign when a Set or thirty-years' festival was
celebrated.

3. jffiffa ( ^=^ J ] N^ ' ( ™ ^ ] PvA-NEB-KHEKU,

son of the Sun, Menthu-hetep.

1 Lepsius, Denhnaler, inscription /, lines 3 and 4.

B.C. 2533] THE PYRAMID OF MENTHU-HETEP III. 201

Menthu-hetep III., who adopted for
his Horus name the title " Uniter of the
two lands/' and, like his two predecessors,
styled himself the lord of the cities of the
shrines of Nekhebet and Uatchet, was the
tmiTt greatest of all the kings who bore his

Sam-taui, the . , . , . , -i

Horus name of name ; that his rule was a long one is

Menthu-hetep .. _

ni. evident from the fact that the btele oi

Meru in Turin 1 is dated in the forty-sixth year of his
reign. The names and titles of Menthu-hetep III.
as king of all Egynt are found upon a rock at Aswan, 2
and as his prenomen is given on the Tablets of Abydos
and Sakkara the scribes of the XlXth Dynasty must
have considered him to be a great king. He was
buried in a pyramid tomb, or in a tomb with a roof
pointed like a pyramid, which was built in the Biban
al-Muluk, or Tombs of the Kings, at Thebes, and in the
Abbott Papyrus 3 we have the following entry concerning
it : — "The tomb of Ra-neb-kkert (life, strength, health !),
"the son of the Sun, Menthu-hetep (life, strength,
"health!), which is in the funeral mountain called
" Tchesert, was intact." The name of the pyramid tomb

of Menthu-hetep III. was "Khu-ast," ^^ jj i A , a fact

which we learn from the funeral stele of one Tetu, who
was the "chief reader," and "superintendent of the
offerings," and a scribe connected with the worship

1 Wiedemann, op. cit., p. 226.

2 See Lepsius, op. cit., p. 149&.

3 Maspero, Enquete Judiciaire, p. 21.

202 MENTHU-HETEP III. [B.C. 2533

of the king which took place there ; Tetu was buried
at Abydos, 1 and in a short inscription in. his tomb he
asks every priest, and every reader, and every scribe of
the temple to remember that he was a scribe in the
temple there. In his later years Menthu-hetep III.
carried on war against a number of tribes who lived in
Nubia, and also in the Western Desert, and before his
death his empire extended from the sea-coast on the
north to a point some considerable distance to the south
of Aswan. An interesting scene in which he is re-
presented receiving the homage or adoration of a" son
of the Sun, Antef," is found cut on a rock on the side
of the road which leads inland from Hosh Gebel Silsila
on the Nile. Here we have a colossal standing figure
of the king holding a club in the right hand, and a
sceptre in the left ; above his head are his Horus name
and his name as king of the South and North. Before
him stands the royal personage called Antef, who is
followed by Khati, the chancellor, and overseer of the
seal ; and behind him is the divine mother Aahet,

(1 - a x a } who holds a lotus flower in the right hand,

and a staff in the left. 2

To the reign of Menthu-hetep III. belongs the famous

inscribed stele of Maati-sen, or Merti-sen,

n

1 Wiedemann, op. cit., p. 227; Mariette, Catalogue, No. 605,
p. 135.

2 First published by Eisenlohr from a drawing by Harris in
Proc. Soc. Bill. Arch., 1881, p. 100.

B.C. 2533] THE SCULPTOR MERTI-SEN 203

an artist and sculptor of great skill and repute in his

day, if we may believe his own description of his

artistic powers. The inscription has been published

several times/ and is of considerable interest, for

it shows that the kingdom of Egypt was sufficiently

consolidated to admit of the employment of skilled

artists and sculptors. Maati-sen says, "I know the

' secret things of sacred literature, and the regu-

' lations of the festivals, and every word of power with

1 which a man should be provided therefor; I have never

' put them away from me. I am, moreover, a workman

' skilled in his craft, who by reason of his knowledge

' hath risen above [all others]. I have knowledge con-

' cerning the water flood [of the Nile], and of the rising

' of the scales in making reckoning by weighing, and

' how to depict the motion of a limb when it is extended

f and withdrawn to its place. I know [how to depict] the

' gait of a man, and the way in which a woman beareth

' herself, and the two arms of Horus, and the twelve

' abodes of the Monster, and how to gaze with that un-

' equalled eye which striketh terror into the fiends, and

' how to balance the arm in such a way as to smite down

1 the hippopotamus, and [how to depict] the stride of him

1 that runneth. I know how to make the amulets which

' will enable us to go unharmed through every fire what-

1 soever, and which will keep us from being washed away

' by any water whatsoever. No man getteth skill in

1 The text is given with an English version by Maspero in
Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. v. p. 555 ff.

204

SE-ANKH-KA-RA

[B.C. 2500

" tliese matters except myself and the eldest son of my
"body, unto whom God hath decreed that he should
" advance in them. I have seen the productions of his
" two hands and his beautiful work in precious stones of
" every kind, and in gold, and in silver, and in ebony."

n

4 - w^ fo P •¥■ Lil Ea-se-ankh-ka.

The name of Seankhka-Ea as " son of
the Sun" is unknown, but it has been
conjectured x that it was " Antef," and, in

fact.

that this king is to be identified

Se-ankh-taui-f,

the Horus name

of
Se-ankh-ka-Ra.

with the " son of the Sun " who is seen
adoring Menthu-hetep III. at Hosh Gebel
Silsila as already described ; but whether
this be so or not, it is quite certain
that he was monarch of all Egypt, and
we know that he styled himself " lord
of the shrines of Nekhebet and Uatchet " ; he also
called himself the " Horus of gold." In the Tablet of
Abydos his cartouche precedes that of Amenemhat I.,
and he appears to have been the last king of the Xlth
Dynasty. Of the reign of this king we have very few
details, for, like most of his immediate predecessors, he
seems to have taken no special trouble to commemorate
his exploits. One very important document, the text
of which has come clown to us, gives us an account of an

1 Petrie, History, p. 141.

B.C. 2500] HENNU'S EXPEDITION TO PUNT 205

expedition to Punt, which was placed by the king under

Q AAMAA Q

the direction of a general called Hennu, \\J Q « nft ;

this document is inscribed on a rock in the Wadi Ham-
mamat, 1 and is dated on the third day of the season
She in the eighth year of the reign of Seankh-ka-Ra.
According to the text, Hennu was sent to take ships to

Punt to bring back the dnti unguent, 'v\ , or

spice, which had been collected for the king of Egypt
by the chiefs of the great tribes of the desert who lived
in fear of hini. He set out from the town of Coptos
on the Nile, and his majesty ordered him to take with

him armed men from the noine of the Thebaid, j ^ ,

and a number of skilled artificers, who were also to be
armed in such a way that they would be able to meet
and overcome the opposition of any organized force that
might be encountered on the way. He started on his
journey with three thousand men, and passed through
Atert-Teshert (Red Town) and Aat-en-Sekhet (House
of the Wood), by which time he had presumably reached
the desert road of Wadi Hammamat. He next made
ready water-skins and yokes on which to carry them,
and made a regulation whereby each man was to take
his turn in carrying the water for the army. In a wood

he dug a reservoir, and at Atahet, (I <=^a v\ , two

reservoirs, one of which measured a hhet by twenty

1 Published in Lepsius, Denhndler, ii. 150<x.

206 HENNU'S EXPEDITION TO PUNT [B.C. 2500

cubits, and the other a khet by thirty cubits ; at Aaheteb,

( >kV r^^i , he also dug a reservoir which measured

ten cubits by ten cubits. At these wells Hennu's troops
drank, and so made their way to the coast of the Ked
Sea near the modern Kuser (Kosseir), 1 where goats, and
cows, and oxen were sacrificed as thanksgiving offerings
for their safe arrival. From this place Hennu set out
for Punt in ships or boats which he built, and having
arrived in that country and ladeu his boats with products
of every kind, he sailed back to the port from which he

had started, and coming back by Uak, "Jf ] > an( l

Pe-henu, he brought with him blocks of fine stone suit-
able for making statues of the gods and of the king.
Hennu tells us that such a thing had never been per-
formed since kings had existed, and that no one who
had been sent to these places, i.e., Punt and its
neighbourhood, had ever done the like since the time
of Ea, meaning that it was possible that the gods might
have performed such a feat when they were reigning
over Egypt, but that no man had ever done so. The
above facts are very important as showing that already
in the Xlth Dynasty the Egyptians had commercial
relations with the country of Punt by sea, and that when it
was necessary they were able to provide for the transport
of a considerable number of men. It is probable that

1 Chabas read the name of the place as Sba, and thought the
place referred to was the Leukos-Liruen of the classical writers ;
see Voyage, p. 58.

B.C. 2500] RELATIONS BETWEEN EGYPT AND PUNT 207

Hemra sent on companies of men in advance, to make
ready the reservoirs, i.e., to break up the stone in places
where it was known by experience that water would be
found beneath the surface, so that by the time when the
main body of his army arrived water would have
collected in them. A number of such reservoirs are to be
found in many places in the Eastern Desert, especially
in and near the Wadi 'Ulaki, and along the desert routes
leading into it from the north and south. There is
reason to believe that the Egyptians always kept up
friendly relations with Punt. It may have been byway
of this land that in the earliest dawn of Egyptian
history the victorious foreigners from the East ap-
proached the place on the western coast of the Ked Sea,
whence they entered the Wadi Hammamat and the
Nile Valley. The dnti spice or unguent was so much
prized in Egypt, that it probably was necessary for
caravans to go once or twice a year to meet boats from
Punt, and exchange and barter must have taken place
between the Egyptians and the people of Punt from the
earliest dynastic times. The expedition of Hennu was
on a large scale, and this able official, no doubt, took
care that his skilful conduct of the same should be
recorded.

END OF VOL. II.

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